Market Role of the State and Possibilities to Control this Role at Public Enterprises

This paper is intended to explore the role of the state in the economy, the controllability of this role and the ex-post control of the activities involved. The article focuses on the measurability of the efficiency of the state’s participation and the Hungarian characteristics and current trends of the state’s role; issues that are closely intertwined with the notion of transparent fiscal manage-ment and the requirement of accountability. The study presents the place and various forms of state participation from a theoretical perspective before it proceeds to discuss theoretical proposals, valuable methodologies and options regarding the performance measurement, controllability and control of the state’s role. The paper sums up the relationship between theory and Hungarian practice, and confronts the findings of a survey1 conducted among companies in majority state ownership with the theories. Finally, it draws practical conclusions from the findings of the author’s survey and offers a number of critical remarks.