Introduction: Revisiting the Role of State-Owned Enterprises in Strategic Sectors

A few years after the fall of the Berlin wall, the World Bank published Bureaucrats in Business, an influential report on State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) that provided a road-map on how to reform - or privatize - those “loss making state-owned-enterprises that are a significant burden on government budgets and […] hinder growth, impede market liberalization and thus both directly and indirectly limit efforts to reduce poverty” (World Bank, 1995, p. ix). Some 25 years later SOEs are still pervasive. This special issue follows up on Bureaucrats in Business, and sheds light on the continued important phenomena of SOEs and attempts to understand what the perception is about the role that SOEs should play both in tranquil and in turbulent times. We firstly set out an overview of the presence of SOEs over time and across sectors and country groups). Because the topic of the role SOEs should play in the economy is influenced by politics, second, we summarize the results of a Delphi study that presents new consensus on SOEs according to experts. Third, we then review the linkages between ownership and performance in the infrastructure and financial sectors. Fourth, we shed light on the new phenomenon of SOEs abroad, and then conclude.