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Voucher privatization with investment funds : an institutional analysis

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  • Ellerman, David

Abstract

Common wisdom among post-socialist reformers has beento use voucher investment funds to provide the corporate governance needed to restructure newly privatized enterprises after mass privatization efforts. The idea has been that mass privatization would spread the ownership too wide and make corporate governance difficult. The author examines the likely institutional behavior of voucher funds and the possible effects of their development on a transition economy. Since most policy advice has been in favor of voucher privatization with investment funds, the author can be seen as playing the devil's advocate, but his argument is institutional, not statistical. Policymaking requires insight and foresight into how institutions will tend to function. He concludes that voucher funds will introduce a bias in the economy away from the real industrial sector toward an ersatz"financial sector"that will have little if any positive financial role but will be well-protected by friendly regulators. One long-term consequence of voucher privatization with investment funds, according to this view, is a de facto"industrial policy"of real sector decapitalization in favor of short-term rent-seeking by fund managers through board sinecures and lucrative side deals with portfolio companies and through financial market manipulation and paper entrepreneurship in the"financial sector."Without strong corporate governance from the funds and without stable ownership of their own, many enterprise managers will exploit the post-socialist version of the"separation of ownership and control"to grab what they can in the form of salaries, bonuses, perquisites, and side deals. The most likely results of the strategy of voucher privatization with investment funds may be a two-sided grab fest by fund managers and enterprise managers -- together with the accompanying drift, stagnation, and decapitalization of the privatized industrial sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Ellerman, David, 1998. "Voucher privatization with investment funds : an institutional analysis," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1924, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:1924
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Jean-Paul Fitoussi (ed.), 1995. "Economics in a Changing World," International Economic Association Series, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-349-23953-5, December.
    2. Alan S. Blinder, 1995. "Should the Formerly Socialist Economies Look East or West for a Model?," International Economic Association Series, in: Jean-Paul Fitoussi (ed.), Economics in a Changing World, chapter 1, pages 3-24, Palgrave Macmillan.
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    Cited by:

    1. Martin Cincibuch, David Vávra, 2001. "Toward the European Monetary Union - A Need for Exchange Rate Flexibility?," Eastern European Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(6), pages 23-63, November.
    2. Ondrej Vychodil, 2005. "Ownership Concentration and Restructuring in Czech Manufacturing Sector," Finance 0511004, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Alan A. Bevan & Saul Estrin, 2000. "The Determinants of Foreign Direct Investment in Transition Economies," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 342, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    4. Lizal, Lubomir & Kocenda, Evzen, 2001. "State of corruption in transition: case of the Czech Republic," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 2(2), pages 138-160, June.
    5. David Ellerman, 2002. "Russia : Thoughts on the Privatization Debates a Decade Later," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 19062, December.
    6. Kornai, János, 2000. "Tíz évvel a Röpirat angol kiadásának megjelenése után. A szerző önértékelése [Ten years after the English edition of `The Road to a Free Economy'. The author's self-evaluation]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(9), pages 647-661.
    7. Janos Kornai, 2001. "Ten Years after “The Road to a Free Economy”: Self-estimate of the Author," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 1, pages 42-60.
    8. Gerald A. McDermott, 2000. "Network Restructuring and Firm Creation in East-Central Europe: A Public-Private Venture," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 361, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    9. Patrick Hamm & David Stuckler & Lawrence King, 2010. "The Governance Grenade: Mass Privatization, State Capacity and Economic Growth in Post-communist Countries," Working Papers wp222, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

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