Il socio pubblico e le società partecipate, tra antiche diffidenze e inattese promozioni. Appunti per una politica di governo del fenomeno societario pubblico

The essay, after a brief foreword on the affirmation of the corporate model for the exercise of public enterprise, tries to carry out an initial verification, whether the legislation is discouraging the use of public companies or at least confining it to well-defined areas, or whether there is a complex picture to be reconstructed, with lines of development moving in several directions. The analysis distinguishes the ends pursued by the legislation, testing those stated and bringing out those that, although not obvious, more consistently express the content of the norms. Subsequent issues concern the effects of these attempts to regulate public sha- reholdings, whether and to what extent there have been and whether they can be reliably me- asured. In the presence of significant deviations from expectations, it is necessary to ascertain whether they are always a sign of dysfunction or whether they instead bring out characteristics and adaptive capacities peculiar to the model. Which leads to an underlying issue, whether the model is concerned not only with containing the phenomenon but also with governing it, in short, whether there is a coherent design on the direction and control of public companies, and how far such a design guarantees the effective governance of holdings.