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Despite the extensive privatization achievements over the last decades, government ownership of publicly traded companies remains pervasive around the world. Consistent with past evidence of structural change in the beta coefficient during financial crises, the more recent economic recession of 2014 to 2016 in Brazil presents an opportunity to demonstrate the disadvantages of allocating investment in companies that are publicly traded, but are controlled by the government. Constructing a portfolio of publicly traded State Owned Enterprises, we find that the financial crisis produced a significant increase in risk exposure, results that were much more pronounced when compared with a portfolio of privatized companies. The results also indicate that, in addition to a market factor, the poor performance can be explained by controllership. We believe this study adds to the longstanding debate on whether state-owned firms perform worse than private firms, with higher volatility and lower returns, particularly, during a period of financial crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses the contradictions of state policy in the sphere of public ownership. It is noted that in the Ukraine there is a movement towards liberalization of all areas of public life which, on the one hand, justifies itself in the context of deregulation of certain spheres of the economy but, on the other, assumes a threatening character with regards to the unwarranted privatization of public property, etc. The inconsistency of the dominant scientific point of view on minimizing the participation of the state as the owner (entrepreneur) is emphasized. It is proposed that a system of innovative enterprises be created that would be able to accelerate the renovation of production in Ukraine. A new approach to the creation of state-owned enterprises has been developed. The expected results of the activity of the newly created state-owned enterprises and the directions of their further transformation are determined. The proposals presented in the paper will ensure the growth of the production potential of the domestic economy, which will be key to the accelerated socio-economic development of Ukraine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Privatization of state owned enterprises (SOEs) has been a key plank of the neo-liberal counter-revolution against economic development since the 1980s. Privatization's promoters promised improved efficiency and improved fiscal balances, both supposedly contributing to higher economic growth. Privatization was also supposed to ensure improved consumer welfare through increased competition and lower prices. Empirical support for these claims is scant and often contradictory. Thus, in many cases, privatization has been worse as a solution to the ills it purported to overcome. The problems of SOEs are not necessarily due to public ownership per se. In any case, there are alternative governance, management and organization means to improve SOE performance without privatization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite China's effort to privatize many state-owned enterprises (SOEs) after 1978, SOEs remain a prevalent type of enterprise in contemporary China. There is a widespread belief that they are inefficient and only exist because they have captured the government. This belief, however, does not fully explain why SOEs have been privatized in some sectors but not in others. This Article provides an efficiency explanation of SOEs in China. Applying the law and economic theory on the ownership of enterprise to state ownership, this Article conceptualizes the efficiency of SOEs as a tradeoff between two social costs: ownership costs and regulatory costs. SOEs generally have high ownership costs and thus are not common in many developed countries. However, in developing countries with weak regulatory capacity and legal institutions, they may help reduce regulatory costs, including the social costs associated with the enactment, alteration, and enforcement of regulatory rules, and those costs resulting from the failure to regulate enterprises adequately. The magnitude of regulatory costs in a specific country and industry, in turn, is significantly influenced by the regulatory institutions within which the enterprises operate. An important implication is that refining regulatory regimes may reduce regulatory costs and - in part by facilitating privatization of SOEs - enhance social efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Since 2002, government nationalizations and contractual breaches in general around the world have surged. South America has witnessed a wave of nationalizations of private enterprises, mostly foreign. Some analysts contend that this trend is shaped by the left-wing ideological orientation of the governments, whereas others argue that a more robust explanation is the combination of economic pressure and constraint factors. This article contributes to the debate by using a nuanced institutional analytical framework based on the concept of company versus government opportunism, applied to the recent nationalization of previously privatized companies. It examines Argentina, a country that in the last two decades has seen radical policy reversals, from sweeping privatization of state-owned enterprises in the 1990s to a renationalization effort with some of the same companies in the early 2000s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on privatisation, the change of ownership rights from government-owned enterprises to private sector, which is considered controversial despite its success. It explores the criticisms of privatisation, theoretical arguments favoring state-owned enterprise, and the significance of fiscal constitution.

The global financial crisis that erupted in 2008 has had enormous implications for the composition of the state-owned enterprise (SOE) sector in many advanced economies around the world. The crisis resulted in the nationalization of financial institutions in a number of economies, but has also led to a number of countries pursuing policies of privatization to raise much needed revenue to tackle high levels of indebtedness. This article describes the changes to the composition of the Irish SOE sector since the onset of the economic crisis in 2008, as well as its impact on the stated plans for the future of the SOE sector. It addresses the question of privatization and the conditionality for the sale of state assets contained in the bailout agreement signed between the Irish government and the IMF/ECB/European Commission (the 'Troika'). It finds that Ireland has been afforded a degree of discretion with regard to the choice of assets to be sold and the application of proceeds. Revenue targets, however, have been dictated by the Troika. This contrasts with the agreements forged between the Troika and the governments of Greece and Portugal where there has been a far greater degree of conditionality attached to SOE divestments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Privatisation has been advocated as the predominant way to solve the problems facing ailing public enterprises in developing countries. Despite this, the policy remains controversial. The available empirical evidence on the operational and financial performance of enterprises after privatisation has often painted a rosy picture. This paper reassesses the situation using a larger sample of enterprises and a comparative perspective between privatised utilities, non-utilities and private enterprises that have never been state owned. The results of our analysis point to there being differences in the performance across the three groups of enterprises and, in particular, to a deterioration in performance among privatised utilities. This suggests that the earlier optimism over the efficacy of privatisation may have been premature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article summarizes the main phases of the long-term process of rise and fall of state-owned enterprise (SOE) in the Western world. It focuses first on the waves of nationalization that occurred in the last century, addressing the major motives that explained them. Next, moving from the changing environment that opened the way toward the rush to privatization of the last two decades, it dwells on the quantitative dimension of the de-nationalization phenomenon and offers some thoughts on its consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reform in China’s urban public sector has been so contentious that the nature, function, validity and viability of state firms require clarifications. First of a two-part critique, this essay assesses the outcomes and wider consequences of China’s largely free wheeling process of privatization as compared to the rationale claimed for its instigation. By identifying the ideological and political forces behind that process, the essay further seeks to explain the erosion of public policy capacities pivotal for social defence in market globalization, thereby demonstrating the need to reorient the reform. Losing the opportunity to reinvigorate a sizable and strong state sector capable of healthy interactions with other sectors is shown to be especially damaging in developing and transitional societies, which in turn negatively impacts both global economy and ecology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is privatization in China leading to political change? This article presents original survey data from 1999 and 2005 to evaluate the Communist Party's strategy towards the private sector. The CCP is increasingly integrating itself with the private sector, both by co-opting entrepreneurs into the Party and encouraging current Party members to go into business. It has opened the political system to private entrepreneurs, but still screens which ones are allowed to play political roles. Because of their close personal and professional ties, and because of their shared interests in promoting economic growth, China's capitalists and communist officials share similar viewpoints on a range of political, economic and social issues. Rather than promote democratic governance, China's capitalists have a stake in preserving the political system that has allowed them to prosper, and they are among the Party's most important bases of support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the recent evolution of the Italian steel industry and of steel-making activities in two localities in the Mezzogiorno. After providing an account of the rise and fall of the public steel sector in Italy and its role in shifting the industry's centre of gravity to the South, it concentrates on a conceptually informed discussion of the remarkable rise of northern mini-mill operations and the subsequent acquisition by a few of these companies of the privatized public enterprises in the 1990s. Most attention is paid to two of the leading new companies (Lucchini and Riva) and to the trajectories of some of their steel-making activities in two localities in Basilicata and Apulia. The trajectories of these companies and localized steel-making activities are themselves explained in the light of the resources and strategies of corporate actors and the context in which these actors operate. Actors' strategies are driven by a quest for profits and a struggle to accumulate in the face of competition from rival producers, and are examined in relation to the economics of steel production in the Italian South, the processes of workforce recomposition in Taranto and the tensions between profitability and environmental protection. The context includes cyclical and secular trends in the consumption and production of steel, some of the aid and restructuring actions of the ECSC, some of the specific characteristics of accumulation and competition in the steel sector and the legacies of earlier phases of local development that helped shape actors' strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of ongoing scandals about public versus private ownership, we review the rise and fall of British nationalised industries, and the subsequent rise of privatisation based on perception of market-based efficiency as a means of improving public service. We evaluate the theoretical and empirical arguments around privatisation and find that the argument of privatisation as a vehicle for efficiency gains is a myth. Instead, we suggest that efficiency is not solely a matter of ownership, but requires a complex interplay of social and commercial variables to make it possible. We call for a more inventive and flexible approach in the search for efficiency in the public sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This presidential address considers two waves of privatization and their social consequences. It briefly describes the privatization of government services. This type of privatization directly involves business in the provision of government services. This address also considers "the new privatization," in which the organizational culture of government and non-profit sectors is restructured according to market principles. Case study examples are used to outline some consequences of new privatization trends and their significance for social life not only within, but beyond public service organizations. The examples also suggest contradictions in the new privatization, disjunctures that offer opportunities for the pursuit of a more just society.

This article attempts to examine some of the concerns and challenges of privatization as a strategy for rethinking government economic intervention in the economy and for rebalancing public/private sector relationships. Specifically, this article focuses on the case of sub-Saharan Africa. The article examines the concept of privatization in terms of its objectives and explores its theoretical framework and underlying assumptions. The nature of growth of state-owned enterprises in sub-Saharan Africa is also examined. The article also explores some factors that aided the growth, and the performance of these enterprises.

China's state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have achieved significant growth and productivity gains without privatization. Despite that, the regime has since late 1993 been forced to put privatization on the agenda, a development that has reached an important milestone at the Parry's 15th Congress of September 1997 and since. At the same time, the private sector has grown phenomenally, controlling close to half of the national economy in many respects by now. The regime has not only been ready to let private capital lake over small SOEs, but has been desperate to woo private capital for capital injection into even the largest SOEs. While the regime hopes to retain control of these latter SOEs despite private equity participation, a very real possibility exists for the process to run out of the regime's control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]