Restructuring of insider-dominated firms

Using enterprise survey data for 1995-97, the author studies and compares how different modes of privatizing to insiders affect enterprise restructuring in two former Soviet republics, Georgia and Moldova. Restructuring in companies in which incumbent managers received significant ownership stakes for free was similar to that in companies that were still state-owned. By contrast, restructuring was faster in companies bought by their managers. The author interprets these results as suggesting that managers'incentives to restructure decrease when they regard their newly acquired ownership as a windfall gain.Microfinance,Small and Medium Size Enterprises,Banks&Banking Reform,Small Scale Enterprise,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Private Participation in Infrastructure,Microfinance,Small Scale Enterprise,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Banks&Banking Reform

Ownership structure and enterprise restructuring in six newly independent states

The author investigates the relationship between ownership structure and enterprise restructuring in six newly independent states: Georgia, Kazakstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine. He documents the changing pattern of ownership in 960 privatized manufacturing companies from 1995-97. There are large differences in ownership structure across countries, differences that seem to be determined by the method of privatization pursued. Enterprises in countries where the privatization programs favored incumbent managers (Georgia and Ukraine) ended with heavy ownership by managers (an average 53.6 percent and 46.2 percent respectively). Countries that used mainly the mass privatization approach (Kazakstan and the Kyrgyz Republic had the highest proportion of ownership shares held be outside investors (37 percent and 21.2 percent respectively). Foreign ownership is positively associated with enterprise restructuring at high ownership levels (above 30 percent of shares). By contrast, the relationship between management ownership by outside local investors or the state is not significantly correlated with restructuring.Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Small and Medium Size Enterprises,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Banks&Banking Reform,Municipal Financial Management,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Economic Theory&Research

Enterprise isolation programs in transition economies : evidence from Romania

How should countries in transition to market economies handle the losses of large loss-making enterprises? Over the past six years several governments in transition economies have implemented isolation programs that combine features of reorganization under bankruptcy (as in industrial countries) with severance payments for employees and assistance with labor deployment. The author analyzes isolation programs for financially distressed firms in transition economies based on empirical evidence from Romania, the program that had the greatest coverage. The results indicate that Romania's isolation program fulfilled none of its intentions. Despite substantial costs, it neither delivered tangible improvements in operational performance nor improved the process of privatization or liquidation of large loss-making enterprises. Worse still, the program may have delayed restructuring by not imposing hard budget constraints. Firms included in the program faced softer budget constraints than their counterparts outside the program. Loss makers were not selected through objective criteria, and the agency in charge was not sheltered from politicalpressure in enforcing hard budget constraints. The author therefore questions the feasibility of creating special programs for enterprise restructuring under government auspices, with government agencies choosing beneficiaries and deciding on the scope of activity. His conclusion supports the insistence of international donor organizations that governments in transition economies privatize rapidly, without attempting first to restructure enterprises.Small and Medium Size Enterprises,Microfinance,Municipal Financial Management,Banks&Banking Reform,Small Scale Enterprise,Banks&Banking Reform,Municipal Financial Management,Private Participation in Infrastructure,Microfinance,Small Scale Enterprise

Corruption and firm behavior

This paper investigates how corruption affects firrm behavior. Firms can engage in two types of corruption when seeking a public service: cost-reducing "collusive" corruption and cost increasing "coercive" corruption. Using an original and unusually rich dataset on bribe payments at ports matched to firrm-level data, we observe how firms respond to each type of corruption by adjusting their shipping and sourcing strategies. "Collusive" corruption is associated with higher usage of the corrupt port, while "coercive" corruption is associated with reduced demand for port services. Our results suggest that firms respond to the opportunities and challenges created by different types of corruption, organizing production in a way that increases or decreases demand for the public service. Understanding how firms respond to corruption has important implications for how we conceptualize, identify and measure the overall impact of corruption on economic activity

Catching up with Eastern Europe? The European Union's Mediterranean free trade initiative

Many countries in the Middle East and North Africa that are considering liberalizing, privatizing, and deregulating markets face difficult policy issues. Gradual, piecemeal reform efforts have had limited success. The option of a Euro-Mediterranean Agreement (EMA) offers a new opportunity to implement structural reform. Two questions can be posed: (1) Why pursue regional integration? and (2) Is an EMA sufficient? Justifications for regional integration include the following: The EMA may offer a stronger mechanism for locking in economic reform than does the World Trade Organization (WTO), while the preferential nature of an EMA might help overcome domestic resistance to liberalization. Harmonization of regulatory regimes and administrative requirements could facilitate trade. Market access could be more secure if countries agreed not to impose contingent protection, such as antidumping actions. Transfers from the European Union to partner countries (financial or technical assistance) would help offset lost tariff revenue and the costs of trade diversion. The EMA signed between Tunisia and the European Union does not go significantly beyond existing multilateral (WTO) disciplines. The long 12-year transition path may reduce incentives to initiate rapid restructuring and may create problems in implementing future tariff reductions. While the EMA option gives the Mediterranean countries a unique opportunity to pursue far-reaching trade liberalization credibly and gradually, the economic benefits will be limited if trade liberalization is restricted to manufactured products. Service markets and foreign investment must also be liberalized to ensure a supply response and create new employment opportunities. Equally important are factors that cannot be"imported"through an agreement with the European Union: efficient public institutions, domestic competition, investment in education, high rates of private savings and investments, a stable economy, and openness to the world economy. The greater the extent to which the EMA-based preferential liberalization is extended to non-European countries, the greater the benefits for participating Mediterranean countries.Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Trade Policy,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Rules of Origin,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Economic Theory&Research,Trade and Regional Integration,Environmental Economics&Policies,Trade Policy

Foreign investment and productivity growth in Czech enterprises

Firm-level data for the Czech Republic (1992-96) suggest that foreign investments had a positive impact on recipient firms'total factor productivity (TFP) growth. This result is robust to corrections for the sample-selection bias that prevails because foreign investment tends to go to firms with above-average productivity performance. This result is not surprising, given the presumption that foreign investors transfer new technologies and knowledge to partner firms. With some lag, this is likely to be reflected in greater TFP growth. Foreign direct investment appears to have a greater impact on TFP growth than joint ventures, suggesting that parent firms are transferring more know-how (soft or hard) to affiliates than joint venture firms get from their partners. Joint ventures and foreign direct investment together appear to have a negative spillover effect on firms that do not have foreign partnerships. This effect is relatively large and statistically significant. But if the focus is restricted to the impact of foreign-owned affiliates (foreign direct investment) on all other firms in an industry, the magnitude of the negative effect becomes much smaller and loses statistical significance. This result, together with the fact that joint ventures and foreign direct investment together account for significant shares of total output in many industries, suggests that more research is needed to determine how much knowledge diffuses from firms with strong links to foreign firms to firms that do not have such links. Especially important is the extent of spillovers among joint venture firms and between foreign affiliates and firms with joint ventures. Insofar as joint venture firms invest in technological capacity (as suggested by their training efforts), those firms could be expected to be better able to absorb and benefit from the diffusion of know-how. The absence of such capacity may underlie the observed negative spillover effect on other firms in the industry. Longer time series and collection of data on variables that measure firms'in-house technological effort would help identify the magnitude and determinants of technological spillovers.ICT Policy and Strategies,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,General Technology,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,ICT Policy and Strategies,Microfinance,Small Scale Enterprise,Private Participation in Infrastructure

Trade reorientation and productivity growth in Bulgarian enterprises

Although the impact of international trade is usually analyzed at the macroeconomic level or at the industry level, the authors here explicitly restrict their analysis to the microeconomic level, the level of the firm. Specifically, they investigate the relative importance of integration with world markets as a source of productivity growth in Bulgarian firms, controlling for macroeconomic forces. They focus on the potential importance to economic growth of greater access (after trade liberalization) to global markets for designs, equipment, and intermediates. By buying intermediates and equipment, firms are allowed to improve their productivity and to learn by exporting to more mature markets. The changes that occurred in trade patterns after opening the economy provide one indicator of the manager's attempts to import better technology. The partial correlations suggest that firms that reorient their trade patterns, which is arguably the most appropriate measure of trade integration for transition economies, tend to have higher growth rates for total factor productivity (TFP).Municipal Financial Management,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform

How ready is the UK for Brexit?: 9%

Opinions on whether Britain will be ready to exit the EU in 2019 differ. Simeon Djankov introduces the Brexit Readiness Score: updated quarterly, the index would track the negotiations' progress in ten components, each scored on a scale from 0 (no progress) to 10 (full readiness). Based on the data available so far, he estimates the UK's current readiness to be at 9 ..

Introducing the Brexit readiness score

If you believe Prime Minister Theresa May the United Kingdom will be ready to exit the European Union in April 2019. If you believe UK businesses Britain is falling behind in its preparations. The next round of Brexit negotiations, and the first since the summer recess, was delayed by a week to September 25, 2017, suggesting that businesses may be ..