IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/2895.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Mass Privatisation and Partial State Ownership of Firms in Transition Economics

Author

Listed:
  • Bennett, John
  • Estrin, Saul
  • Maw, James

Abstract

In their privatization programs, transition governments have frequently given away shares (so-called `mass privatization'), while maintaining significant minority ownership. We explain the rationality of these policies for an expected net-revenue maximizing government. Our argument rests on a political feasibility constraint, preventing sale at a negative price. This constraint both raises prices that would otherwise be negative to zero, and has an indirect effect: mass privatization and partial retained state ownership may be chosen even if sale of a firm's entire assets would fetch a positive price. They are more likely to be chosen if the government has low bargaining power.

Suggested Citation

  • Bennett, John & Estrin, Saul & Maw, James, 2001. "Mass Privatisation and Partial State Ownership of Firms in Transition Economics," CEPR Discussion Papers 2895, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:2895
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP2895
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Estrin, Saul & Bennett, John & Maw, James & Urga, Giovanni, 2004. "Privatization Methods and Economic Growth in Transition Economies," CEPR Discussion Papers 4291, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Bhaumik, Sumon Kumar & Estrin, Saul, 2007. "How transition paths differ: Enterprise performance in Russia and China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 374-392, March.
    3. Lihui Tian & Saul Estrin, 2005. "Retained State Shareholding in Chinese PLCs: Does Government Ownership Reduce Corporate Value?," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series wp750, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    4. Sumon Bhaumik & Saul Estrin, 2003. "Why Transition Paths Differ: Russian and Chinese Enterprise Performance Compared," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 525, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    5. Maw, James, 2002. "Partial privatization in transition economies," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 271-282, September.
    6. Saul Estrin, 2002. "Competition and Corporate Governance in Transition," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(1), pages 101-124, Winter.
    7. Saul Estrin, 2001. "Competition and Corporate Governance in Transition," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 431, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    8. Bennett, John & Maw, James, 2003. "Privatization, partial state ownership, and competition," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 58-74, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Privatisation; Transition economies; State ownership;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L33 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - Comparison of Public and Private Enterprise and Nonprofit Institutions; Privatization; Contracting Out
    • P21 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist and Transition Economies - - - Planning, Coordination, and Reform

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:2895. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.