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Does Privatization Hurt Workers? Lessons from Comprehensive Manufacturing Firm Panel Data in Hungary, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine

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Author Info
J. David Brown (Heriot-Watt University and CEU Labor Project)
John S. Earle () (W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research and Central European University)
Almos Telegdy (Central European University and Institute of Economics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences)

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Abstract

We estimate the effects of privatization on firm-level wages and employment in four transition economies. Applied to longitudinal data on manufacturing firms, our fixed effect and random trend models consistently fail to support workers' fears of job losses from privatization, and they never imply large negative effects on wages; only for domestic privatization in Hungary and Russia are small (3-5%) negative wage effects found. Privatization to foreign investors has positive estimated impacts on both employment and wages in all four countries. The negligible consequences of domestic privatization for workers result from effects on scale, productivity, and costs that are large but offsetting in Hungary and Romania, and from small effects of all types in Russia and Ukraine. The positive employment outcome under foreign ownership results from a substantial scale-expansion effect that dominates the productivity-improvement effect, and the positive wage outcome from a productivity effect that dominates the effect on cost reduction.

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Paper provided by W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research in its series Staff Working Papers with number 05-125.

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Date of creation: Nov 2005
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Handle: RePEc:upj:weupjo:05-125

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Related research
Keywords: privatization; employment; wages; foreign ownership; Hungary; Romania; Russia; Ukraine;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior
G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance
J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand
J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
L33 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - Boundaries of Public and Private Enterprise; Privatization; Contracting Out
P31 - Economic Systems - - Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions - - - Socialist Enterprises and Their Transitions

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Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
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    Other versions:
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  3. J. David Brown & John S. Earle & Almos Telegdy, 2006. "The Productivity Effects of Privatization: Longitudinal Estimates from Hungary, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(1), pages 61-99, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  4. John S. Earle & Klara Z. Sabirianova, 2002. "How Late to Pay? Understanding Wage Arrears in Russia," Staff Working Papers 02-77, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. John S. Earle & Almos Telegdy, 2007. "Ownership and Wages: Estimating Public-Private and Foreign-Domestic Differentials with LEED from Hungary, 1986–2003," Staff Working Papers 07-134, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. John S. Earle & Álmos Telegdy, 2007. "Ownership and Wages: Estimating Public-Private and Foreign-Domestic Differentials Using LEED from Hungary, 1986-2003," IZA Discussion Papers 3125, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Csengödi, Sándor / Urban, Dieter M., 2008. "Foreign Takeovers and Wage Dispersion in Hungary," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo Group Munich. [Downloadable!]
  4. Robert E. Lipsey, 2006. "Measuring the Impacts of FDI in Central and Eastern Europe," NBER Working Papers 12808, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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