Privatization and Corporate Governance in Poland: Problems and Trends

The paper is devoted to the problems of the impact of privatization on corporate governance formation in Poland. It discusses the dilemmas of choosing a model for privatization and corporate governance, legal background, mechanisms of corporate governance formation depending on a privatization method applied, and the evolution of these structures in the course of systemic transformation in Poland. The Author comes to the conclusion that the processes of privatization and corporate governance formation in Poland are marked by both successes and failures. The most spectacular success is privatization in the “broad sense” which boosted the growth of new private businesses and the share of the private sector in the national economy. Privatization in the “narrow sense” (ownership transformation of state-owned enterprises) was only a partial success, both in terms of quantity and quality. Some methods of privatization proved to be more “permeable,” easier to implement for a number of social, political and technical reasons than the others; thus, the progress of privatization was very uneven across sectors, and some of them (infrastructure, extractive industries and some others) remain predominantly stateowned. There were two reasons for this situation: the highly gradualist, consensual character of Polish privatization procedures and the emergence of interest groups not interested in privatization of remaining state-controlled companies. Recently, new trends are seen that can be interpreted as a certain convergence of corporate governance models and a convergence between the effects of different privatization methods in corporate governance and performance of enterprises. Taking this into account, the Author elaborates on whether the “how to privatize” question still actual and on the “feasibility vs. efficiency” privatization policy dilemma.privatization, corporate governance, transition economy, Poland

Corporate Governance and Secondary Privatisation in Poland: Legal Framework and Changes in Ownership Structure

The task of this paper is to provide information and analysis on the legal framework of privatisation and corporate governance in Poland and on secondary privatisation processes in Polish privatised enterprises, i.e. changes in ownership structure which are taking place after privatisation. The role of regulatory framework in secondary privatisation processes is also shown (besides a number of economic, social, gnoseological, and other factors).corporate governance, privatization, enterprise restructuring, Poland

Privatization in Mongolia

This report is divided into four parts. The first part discusses the first wave of privatization. The second part discusses the development of the capital market in Mongolia; the third part presents and discusses the second wave cash privatization program. And the fourth part offers some new options.Privatization, Mongolia, Transition Economies

Enterprise Performance and Ownership Changes in Polish Firms

The paper consists of two parts. In the first part, the authors briefly summarize the results of previous analyses devoted to such issues of relevance as the ownership structure of privatized companies in Poland and how it changed over the course of the 1990s, what factors seemed to have influenced those changes, the economic performance of these companies, and the composition of corporate governance organs such as supervisory and executive boards. In the second part, the authors present the results of econometric analysis of the relationship between performance and ownership structure evolution, focusing on concentration and the respective roles of three types of owners – managers, non-managerial employees, and strategic outside investors. In reference to the debate about whether ownership variables are exogenous or endogenous for performance, they test both hypotheses concerning the effect of ownership on performance and concerning the effect of performance on ownership change.privatization, ownership structure, enterprise performance, Poland

Secondary Privatization in Poland (Part I): Evolution of Ownership Structure and Company Performance in Firms Privatized by Employee Buyouts

This volume contains the output of country research undertaken in Poland by Piotr Kozarzewski and Richard Woodward under the international comparative project "Secondary Privatization: the Evolution of Ownership Structures of Privatized Enterprises". The project was supported by the European Union's Phare ACE Programme 1997 (project P97-8201 R) and was coordinated by Barbara Baszczyk from the Center for Social and Economic Research (CASE) in Warsaw, Poland. The support of the ACE Programme made it possible to organize the cooperation of an international group of scholars (from the Czech Republic, France, Poland, Slovenia and the U.K.). The entire project was devoted to the investigation of secondary ownership changes in enterprises privatized in special privatization schemes (i.e., mass privatization schemes and MEBOs) in three Central European countries - the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovenia. Through a combination of different research methods, such as secondary analysis of previous research, analysis of legal and other regulatory instruments, original field research, statistical data base research and econometric analysis of individual enterprise data, the project aimed to investigate the scope, pace and trends in secondary ownership changes, the factors and barriers affecting them and the degree of ownership concentration resulting from them. The authors begin with a general discussion of MEBOs in Poland and go on to analyze ownership changes in a sample of such companies. First, they present the initial ownership structures created at the time of privatization and the evolution of those structures through 1999, and then go on to analyze the factors behind these changes and the relationships between the evolution of ownership structures on the one hand and economic performance and corporate governance on the other. We hope that the results of this research will be of great interest for everyone interested in the little-researched question of what has happened to companies after privatization in transition countries.privatization, secondary transactions, corporate governance, transition economies, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Poland

Fiskalizacja polityki własnościowej państwa polskiego w toku transformacji postkomunistycznej

The article is devoted to the evolution of ownership policy of the Polish state in the course of the post-communist transition. The author argues that this policy is characterized by growing fiscalization i.e., treating public property mainly from a short-term fiscal perspective: as a source of finance for the current government’s policies. It manifests itself in resignation from privatization as a strategic tool of economic transition and from state owner’s policy as a tool for overcoming imperfections of market mechanisms. The observed trends pose serious threat both at macro and micro levels, e.g. to the coherence and efficacy of the economic policy of the state and to competitiveness and development prospects of the state-controlled companies. This policy evolution has a long-term character and is to a large extent independent from official rhetoric of subsequent governments and ruling coalitions.Artykuł jest poświęcony ewolucji polityki własnościowej państwa polskiego w toku transformacji postkomunistycznej. Autor stara się udowodnić tezę, że charakteryzuje się ona rosnącą fiskalizacją, czyli traktowaniem własności państwowej, głównie z krótkookresowej perspektywy fiskalnej, jako źródła finansowania bieżącej polityki państwa. Przejawia się to w rezygnacji z prywatyzacji jako strategicznego narzędzia transformacji gospodarczej i z polityki właścicielskiej jako narzędzia do przezwyciężenia niedoskonałości mechanizmów rynkowych. Zaobserwowane trendy stwarzają poważne zagrożenia na szczeblu tak mikro, jak i makro, m.in. dla spójności i skuteczności polityki gospodarczej oraz konkurencyjności i perspektyw rozwojowych spółek kontrolowanych przez Skarb Państwa. Zaobserwowana ewolucja polityki własnościowej ma długoterminowy charakter i tylko w niewielkim stopniu zależy od oficjalnej retoryki kolejnych rządów i koalicji rządzących

Privatization in the Republic of Kazakhstan

In 1991 the Kazakhstan government has embarked on an ambitious economic reform program, in which privatization would be both the driving force and an important component for the successful transformation of the Kazakh economy. A fast transferal of government-owned assets and services to the private sector was regarded as the key to the success of all these transformation efforts. The paper provides an analyses of the first two phases of privatization process in Kazakhstan.Kazakhstan, Privatization, Transition

Background Report on Private Sector Development in Latin America, the Post-Communist Countries of Europe and Asia, the Middle East and North Africa

After a long period in which state-led development was the dominant economic paradigm, since the 1980s private sector development has been the focus for economic policy makers. It is probably no coincidence that economic growth, stagnant for a few decades in much of the developing world, took off in the 1990s after this policy shift, and has generally remained high (in spite of a wave of crises and recessions in the late 1990s and early 2000s). Privatization has made a great deal of progress in the developing world, particularly in Latin America, though the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have lagged somewhat.Private sector, Privatization, Business climate, Middle East, North Africa, Latin America, Post-communist, Central and Eastern Europe

Understanding Reform: The Case of Poland

This report reviews the reform process in Poland in the period 1989-2001, from the formation of the first non-Communist government to the defeat of right-wing forces in the 2001 parliamentary elections and the formation of a governing left-wing coalition of social democrats and the peasants’ party (both of them with roots in the Communist era). It reconstructs the sequence of reforms, assesses their relative successes, and focuses on the problem of the stagnation of the reform process at the end of the 1990s.Poland, reform, transition