This paper was developed with financial support from the SBF Bourse de Paris and the New York Stock Exchange, and the assistance of George Sofianos, Bill Tschirhart, and Didier Davidoff is gratefully acknowledged. We appreciate comments received on this paper from Anthony Boardman, Bernardo Bortolotti, Narjess Boubakri, JeanClaude Cosset, Kathy Dewenter, Alexander Dyck, Ivan Ivanov, Ranko Jelic, Claude Laurin, Marc Lipson, Luis Lopez-Calva, John McMillan (the editor), Harold Mulherin, Rob Nash, John Nellis, David Newberry, David Parker, Enrico Perotti, Annette Poulsen, Ravi Ramamurti, Susan Rose-Ackerman, Nemat Shafik, Mary Shirley, Aidan Vining and three anonymous referees. Additionally, we appreciate comments received from participants at the NYSE/Paris Bourse Global Equity Markets conference (Paris, December 1998), the Harvard Institute for International Development Privatization Workshop (June 2000), the International Federation of Stock Exchanges' Third Global Emerging Markets Conference (Istanbul, April 2000), four World Bank and/or International Finance Corporation meetings, two OECD conferences (Paris and Beijing), the 1999 Conference on Privatization and the Kuwaiti Economy in the Next Century, the 1998 Financial Management Association meeting, the 1999 European Financial Management Association meeting, the Fondazione ENI Enrico Mattei (FFEM), the Swiss Banking Institute and Credit Suisse, and seminars at the City University Business School (London), London Guildhall University and the University of Oklahoma. All remaining errors are the authors' alone. Please address correspondence to: William L. Megginson Price College of Business 307 West Brooks, 205A Adams Hall The University of Oklahoma Norman, OK 73019-4005 Tel: (405) 325-2058; Fax: (405) 325-1957 e-mail:...

NOTE: We will make final revisions to this paper in July 2000, at which time we will make reference to all pertinent papers that have come to our attention by June 30, 2000. If anyone reading this survey knows of a pertinent paper not presently included in the list of references, please send a copy or a reference to one of us. *Djankov is Financial Economist at the World Bank. Murrell is Professor of Economics and Chair of the Academic Council of the IRIS Center, University of Maryland. We would like to thank Judy Hellerstein, John McMillan, John Nellis, and Jan Svejnar for helpful advice and Wooyoung Kim and Tatiana Nenova for research assistance. This research was made possible through support provided by the World Bank and by the U.S. Agency for International Development under Cooperative Agreement No. DHR-0015-A-00-0031-00 to the Center for Institutional Reform and the Informal Sector (IRIS). The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the IRIS Center, US AID, the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the countries they represent. Enterprise Restructuring in Transition: A Quantitative Survey Abstract. There are now over 125 empirical papers that analyze the process of enterprise restructuring in transition

This paper, based on a study of mid-sized firms in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland, seeks to explain the reasons behind the marked impact of ownership on firm performance which has been observed in a number of studies in Eastern Europe and other parts of the world. Focusing in particular on the differential impact of ownership on revenue and cost performance, the paper argues that privatized firms controlled by outside investors are more entrepreneurial than those controlled by corporate insiders or the state. The paper provides evidence that all state and privatized firms in transition economies engage in similar types of restructuring, but that product restructuring by firms owned by outsider investors is significantly more effective (in terms of revenue generation) than that by firms with other types of ownership. The paper also examines the impact of managerial turnover on revenue performance, as well as differences among managers of firms with different types of ownership, and concludes that the more entrepreneurial behavior of outsider-owned firms is due primarily to incentive effects, rather than human capital effects, of privatization. More specifically, the authors argue that the success of outsider-owned firms is due to their greater readiness to accept risks (as evidenced by the

Summary and conclusions......................................................................................................... 12 Evolving regulation: trends and outcomes.............................................................................. 15 Regulatory reform in selected industries............................................................................. 15 Product market liberalisation and performance................................................................. 23

We analyze the effect of ownership on post-privatization performance in a virtually complete population of medium and large firms privatized in a model largescale privatization economy (Czech Republic). We find that concentrated foreign ownership improves economic performance, but domestic private ownership does not, relative to state ownership. Foreign firms engage in strategic restructuring by increasing profit and sales, while domestic firms reduce sales and labor cost without increasing profit. Ownership concentration is associated with superior performance, thus providing support to the agency theory and evidence against theories stressing the positive effects of managerial autonomy and initiative. We find support for a version of the hypothesis that firms restructure by first lowering and later increasing employment. The state as a holder of the golden share stimulates profitable restructuring while pursuing an employment objective, which is understandable in a period of rising unemployment. Our results hence portray the state as a more economically and socially beneficial agent than do some other recent studies.

of the publication is the sole responsibility of the authors and it in no way represents the views of the Commission or its services. The authors would like to thank the Czech Statistical Office for supplying the data. Authors alone are responsible for any remaining errors. Lízal & Svejnar:1 Privatization of state enterprises is often viewed as a necessary condition for improved corporate performance, but many studies suffer from methodological and data problems. We use a 1992-98 panel of the population of Czech industrial firms to assess the effect of mass privatization on corporate performance. Using numerous performance indicators, we find that foreign owners unambiguously improve long-term performance of the former state-owned enterprises. However, the results with respect to privatization to domestic owners are much less impressive. Our study hence provides strong support for the hypothesis that foreign investment improves corporate performance, but it provides very sobering evidence with respect to the hypothesis that privatization to domestic owners (the majority of cases in transition economies) improves performance.

We analyze the effects of ownership type and concentration on performance of a population of firms in a model large-scale privatization economy (Czech Republic). Using specifications based on first-differences and unique instrumental variables, we find that few types of private ownership improve dynamic post-privatization performance. Concentrated foreign (but not domestic) ownership improves some measures of performance relative to state ownership. Foreign investors engage in strategic restructuring by increasing the rate of change of sales, while domestic private owners reduce the rate of change of sales and labor cost without increasing profitability. The effects of concentrated foreign ownership support the agency theory and go against theories stressing the positive effects of managerial autonomy and initiative. Our results are also consistent with the thesis that large domestic stockholders are not improving performance because they loot the firms. We find some support for the hypothesis that firms restructure by first lowering and later increasing the rate of change of employment. The state as a holder of the golden share has a positive effect on employment, while

We analyze the effect of ownership on post-privatization performance in a virtually complete population of medium and large firms privatized in a model largescale privatization economy (Czech Republic). We find that concentrated foreign ownership improves economic performance, but domestic private ownership does not, relative to state ownership. Foreign firms engage in strategic restructuring by increasing profit and sales, while domestic firms reduce sales and labor cost without increasing profit. Ownership concentration is associated with superior performance, thus providing support to the agency theory and evidence against theories stressing the positive effects of managerial autonomy and initiative. Our results are also consistent with the thesis that the presence of a large domestic stockholder may not result in superior performance if this shareholder “loots ” the firm. We find support for a version of the hypothesis that firms restructure by first lowering and later increasing employment. The state as a holder of the golden share stimulates profitable restructuring while pursuing an employment objective, which is understandable in a

http://www.econ.kuleuven.ac.be/licos Case-by-case versus mass privatization in transition economies: Owner and seller effects on performance of firms in Slovenia

While Slovenian post-privatization period has been characterized by a decline in the ownership of the non-managerial owners (employees), managers have been increasing their control. Moreover, given that the optimal ownership stake (as stated by the managers) in the year 2002 exceeded their actual share by 10.8 percentage points, we expect the managers to continue consolidating their ownership also in the future. The aim of our paper is to describe the main trends in the ownership of Slovenian corporations in the post-privatization period and to provide an answer to the basic economic question: what is the influence of the ongoing consolidation of managerial ownership on the performance of Slovenian firms. The empirical analysis testing this relationship is based on a panel of 182 Slovenian firms in the period 1995-99 and does not provide relevant evidence on positive effects of the increasing managerial control on the performance of Slovenian firms. If any, positive incentive effect is observed only in the firms with managers ’ holdings exceeding 10percent, only with regards to firm financial performance (but not total factor productivity) and only in firms that are not listed on the capital market. Furthermore, the negative effect of the current gap between the optimal and actual managerial ownership seems to prevail over any positive incentive effect arising out of managerial ownership. 1.