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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]

This paper contributes to the understanding of factors that may affect the effectiveness of administrative reforms based on the end of the state monopoly in the provision of public services. The focus is on the scope of measures to encourage the entry of new entrepreneurs. The study compares the sectors of electricity (power generation segment), telecommunications (public services) and oil (production and refining segments), precursors of regulatory reforms in Brazil. This is a descriptive research, which includes bibliographical and documentary research and content analysis of the guidelines, normative acts and main measures aimed at stimulating the entry of new entrepreneurs Analyzes were guided by the premise that such reforms were motivated by the failure of State investment. The results demonstrate that the increase in the supply of products and services is directly associated with the legal certainty offered for private investment. This legal certainty is greater when there is the privatization of state-owned enterprises - SOE and concession contracts with the new providers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the changing strategies of developmental states using Brazil's oil-based industrial policy as a case study. We analyse the relationship between the state, Petrobras and industrial elites in the context of Brazil's renewed emphasis on sector-specific industrial development strategy. Taking stock and re-examining the developmental state model, we suggest that developmental states are inherently political, particularly their bureaucracy and state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and that money politics is intricately woven into state-guided high growth regimes. Given the difficulty of privatisation as a solution to SOE (mis)governance, the challenge for Brazil is to mediate extreme political interventions that have eroded Petrobras' autonomy in the past and to sustain institutional capacity to direct rents towards investment and innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The wave of privatization in the 1980s and 1990s increased productivity of many previously state owned enterprises (SOEs). However, governments often do not have sufficient support to privatize SOEs. We provide evidence that threatening privatization and market competition (entry of new firms) can increase the productivity of SOEs, even though privatization and entry of new firms does not occur. We study productivity at Brazil’s state-owned oil company Petrobras. Petrobras’s total factor productivity increased sharply after it lost its legal monopoly, doubling in 6years. These large gains occurred despite the fact that Petrobras faced no immediate de facto competition. The threat of competition and privatization was sufficient to generate large productivity gains. These findings suggest that changing the competitive environment can be a powerful force for improving productivity at state-owned firms. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]