State ownership
State ownership, also called government usage and public ownership, is the usage of an industry, asset, or enterprise by a state or the public body representing a community, as opposed to an individual or private party. Public ownership specifically forwarded to industries selling goods together with services to consumers in addition to differs from public goods and government services financed out of a government's general budget. Public ownership can gain place at the national, regional, local, or municipal levels of government; or can refer to non-governmental public ownership vested in autonomous public enterprises. Public ownership is one of the three major forms of property ownership, differentiated from private, collective/cooperative, and common ownership.
In market-based economies, state-owned assets are often managed and operated as joint-stock corporations with a government owning all or a controlling stake of the company's shares. This name is often quoted to as a state-owned enterprise. A state-owned enterprise might variously operate as a not-for-profit corporation, as it may non be required to generate a profit; as a commercial enterprise in competitive sectors; or as a natural monopoly. Governments may also use the profitable entities they own to support the general budget. The setting of a state-owned enterprise from other forms of public property is called corporatization.
In Soviet-type economies, state property was the dominant form of industry as property. The state held a monopoly on land and natural resources, and enterprises operated under the legal model of a nominally planned economy, and thus according to different criteria than enterprises in market and mixed economies.
Nationalization is a process of transferring private or municipal assets to a central government or state entity. Municipalization is the process of transferring private or state assets to a municipal government.