Post-conflict Privatisation: A Review of Developments in Serbia and Bosnia Herzegovina

This paper is concerned with the micro-level effects of privatisation in South-East Europe, focusing on the experiences of Bosnia Herzegovina and the Republic of Serbia. The republics of the former Yugoslavia were among the first transition economies in Eastern Europe to implement privatisation as far back as 1989, based on the sale of shares to ‘insiders’. However, little was achieved until after the devastating war of the early 1990s, which resulted in both Bosnia Herzegovina and the Republic of Serbia approaching the introduction of revised privatisation programmes in the latter part of the decade from a much weaker economic base. The paper explores the relationship between different privatisation methods and policy outcomes based on a sample of medium-scale industrial enterprises in the two countries for alternative categories of investor. It also considers the effect on the enterprises surveyed of the years of conflict and the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. While there is much shared history, Bosnia Herzegovina and Serbia have had different experiences with privatisation, and the analysis presented in this paper indicates that it is not possible to point to a post-conflict privatisation effect. Rather, outcomes depend on a number of factors including the nature of the programme adopted, the post-war political and institutional framework, the capacity and credibility of the privatisation programme and the wider economic climate.