Proposals For Privatization In Eastern Europe

This paper discusses several proposals for a wholesale privatization of public enterprises in Eastern Europe. These proposals include the distribution of ”vouchers” to private citizens as well as the use of mutual funds, privatization companies and other forms of financial intermediaries. The paper analyzes the implications for economic efficiency of the different forms of ownership and control that would emerge from the proposals as well as their main macroeconomic consequences.

In Eastern Europe privatization is now a mass phenomenon. The authors propose a model of it by means of an illustration from the example of Poland, which envisages the free provision of shares in formerly public undertakings to employees and consumers, and the provision of corporate finance from foreign intermediaries. One danger that emerges is that of bureaucratization. On the broader canvas, mass privatization implies the reform of the whole system, the creation of a suitable economic infrastructure for a market economy and the institutions of corporate governance. The authors point out the need for a delicate balance between evolution - which may be too slow - and design - which brings the risk of more government involvement than it is able to manage. A chapter originating as a European Bank working paper explores the banking implications of setting up a totally new financial sector with interlocking classes of assets. The economic effects merge into politics as the role of the state is investigated. Teachers and graduate students of public/private sector economies, East European affairs; advisers to bankers or commercial companies with Eastern European interests.

This volume is meant to be a modest contribution to the ongoing debate about the transitions away from the administrative planning environment typical of the former communist regimes. The central subject matter is a fairly special one, namely the privatization of these economies together with the restoration and effective monitoring of property rights. These are paramount tasks of the ongoing transformations once progress toward pOlitical democracy is secured. Though I would not allot divestment of existing state-owned assets the kind of pivotal importance that some observers reserve for it, changing rules on the utilization of these assets is evidently at the core of what the transition toward market-based economic systems should be all about. Rather than examining the entire range of issues that surround the controvery on privatization, this volume is primarily concerned with the economics of taking the state out of the decision making about existing assets. Among the several aspects of this discussion three stand out. One is the establishment of clear property rights. This is fundamental to minimize trans action costs in an environment where decisions will increasingly be taken by independent economic agents acting on their own account. Second, I look only incidentally at the various angles of creating capital markets, particularly for existing assets, in these economies.

Privatising firms and liberalizing their market environment generates in Eastern Europe a variety of problems, many of which are not common to the analogous attempts in industries countries. A first difference between the two experiences resides in establishing the value of the firm or of the assets that are being privatized. A second main difference concerns the lack of the record of market performance for the firm. The book explores these open questions through an overview of on-going and proposed processes in Section 1. In Section 2 theoretical foundations of privatization processes are proposed with respect to the financial market, industrial relations and foreign trade. A final key question is faced in Section 3: 'is there any alternative to privatization?'

Central and Eastern European countries are facing the transition from central to market systems with different strategies and capacities. As the task of societal transformation is without precedent in world history, the massive economic restructuring has revealed the need for distributive justice and general well-being. As the editors and contributors to this volume point out, the monolithic preoccupation with economic restructuring in a market economics framework is implemented at the expense of social protection and security. In contrast to traditional views of privatization as only an economic or managerial phenomenon, this collection approaches privatization as a broader integrated process of societal transformation. Privatization as defined here consists of integrated processes of societal restructuring that affect sociopolitical, economic, and ideological constructs as well as human and physical capital development, transformation of family structures, market stabilization, and organization of social care. Public policymakers as well as scholars and researchers of contemporary Eastern Europe will find this collection of great interest, and an important challenge to the economic models of privatization which undervalue social costs.

The creation of new economic and legal mechanisms to replace the fallen communist systems of Eastern Europe must surely count as one of the greatest organizational challenges of this century, and economists and politicians alike are constantly grappling with the enormity of the transformation to be achieved. In this volume, the authors give an in depth explanation of their now widely adopted approach to 'privatizing privatization' and chart the evolution of their thinking, particularly in reaction to real events and prevailing conditions. Expanding on the theme of transferring ownership to the private sector through a system of free vouchers and independent intermediaries, Professors Frydman and Rapaczynski address the dangers of bureaucratization and the delicate balance between the evolutionary elements and imposed regulations that must be achieved to make the transition a success. The perfect companion volume to The Privatization Process in Central Europe, this collection of essays provides a brilliant explanation of the most widely accepted theory of privatization in Eastern Europe today.