Voucher Privatization With Investment Funds

May 1998 The most likely outcome of the strategy of voucher privatization with investment funds may be a two-sided grab fest by fund managers and enterprise managers-along with drift, stagnation, and decapitalization of the privatized industrial sector. Common wisdom among post-socialist reformers has been to use voucher investment funds to provide the corporate governance needed to restructure newly privatized enterprises after mass privatization efforts. The idea has been that mass privatization would spread the ownership too wide and make corporate governance difficult. Ellerman examines the likely institutional behavior of voucher funds and the possible effects of their development on a transition economy. Since most policy advice has been in favor of voucher privatization with investment finds, Ellerman can be seen as playing the devil's advocate, but his argument is institutional, not statistical. Policymaking requires insight and foresight into how institutions will tend to function. He concludes that voucher funds will introduce a bias in the economy away from the real industrial sector toward an ersatz financial sector that will have little if any positive financial role but will be well-protected by friendly regulators. One long-term consequence of voucher privatization with investment funds, according to this view, is a de facto industrial policy of real sector decapitalization in favor of short-term rent-seeking by fund managers through board sinecures and lucrative side deals with portfolio companies and through financial market manipulation and paper entrepreneurship in the financial sector. Without strong corporate governance from the funds and without stable ownership of their own, many enterprise managers will exploit the post-socialist version of the separation of ownership and control to grab what they can in the form of salaries, bonuses, perquisites, and side deals. The most likely results of the strategy of voucher privatization with investment funds may be a two-sided grab fest by fund managers and enterprise managers-together with the accompanying drift, stagnation, and decapitalization of the privatized industrial sector. This paper-a product of the Office of the Senior Vice President, Development Economics-is part of a larger effort in the Bank to define policymaking using institutional analysis. The author may be contacted at [email protected].

The most likely outcome of the strategy of voucher privatization with investment funds may be a two-sided grab fest by fund managers and enterprise managers-along with drift, stagnation, and decapitalization of the privatized industrial sector.Common wisdom among post-socialist reformers has been to use voucher investment funds to provide the corporate governance needed to restructure newly privatized enterprises after mass privatization efforts. The idea has been that mass privatization would spread the ownership too wide and make corporate governance difficult.Ellerman examines the likely institutional behavior of voucher funds and the possible effects of their development on a transition economy. Since most policy advice has been in favor of voucher privatization with investment finds, Ellerman can be seen as playing the devil's advocate, but his argument is institutional, not statistical. Policymaking requires insight and foresight into how institutions will tend to function.He concludes that voucher funds will introduce a bias in the economy away from the real industrial sector toward an ersatz financial sector that will have little if any positive financial role but will be well-protected by friendly regulators.One long-term consequence of voucher privatization with investment funds, according to this view, is a de facto industrial policy of real sector decapitalization in favor of short-term rent-seeking by fund managers through board sinecures and lucrative side deals with portfolio companies and through financial market manipulation and paper entrepreneurship in the financial sector.Without strong corporate governance from the funds and without stable ownership of their own, many enterprise managers will exploit the post-socialist version of the separation of ownership and control to grab what they can in the form of salaries, bonuses, perquisites, and side deals.The most likely results of the strategy of voucher privatization with investment funds may be a two-sided grab fest by fund managers and enterprise managers-together with the accompanying drift, stagnation, and decapitalization of the privatized industrial sector.This paper - a product of the Office of the Senior Vice President, Development Economics - is part of a larger effort in the Bank to define policymaking using institutional analysis. The author may be contacted at [email protected].

Privatization investment funds are the key feature of mass privatization programmes in transitional economies. This book offers a thorough survey of mass privatization programmes in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovenia, supported with extensive empirical analysis. The study of 'top-down' privatization funds in Poland and 'bottom-up' funds in the Czech Republic and Slovenia offers different solutions to the problem of how to improve the governance of privatization funds.

Privatization is not just an economic buzzword. It stands forinvestment opportunities that have unlimited upside potential.Based on years of successful privatization consulting both here andabroad, Ernst & Young has created this definitive resource toexplain, through real-life case studies and detailed examples,everything necessary to locate desirable buys, assess risks andrewards and negotiate the most favorable deals.

World Bank Discussion Paper No. 285. Privatization typically involves a fundamental shift of economic power, always from the state to the private sector and sometimes from domestic to foreign owners. This usually causes political conflict and invol

"This book contains a collection of papers prepared at a World Bank conference held in June 1994 on privatization and private sector development in Russia. It reviews the privatization achievements of Russian reformers over the past three years, discusses emerging second-tier privatization and post-privatization issues, and summarizes the key themes in the papers presented at the conference. Between November 1991 and June 1994: 1) between 12,000 and 14,000 medium-size and large enterprises had been transferred to private ownership; 2) this set of firms employed more than fourteen million people, or about half of those employed in Russia's industrial sector; 3) about forty million Russian citizens owned shares in privatized firms or investment funds. Although the Russian privatization program has achieved impressive results, the transfer of ownership (mainly to insiders) is only a first step. This must be followed by equally essential second steps to facilitate ownership of privatized firms to external, core investors who will bring in much needed capital, managerial know-how, and access to global markets." -- Website.

IFC Discussion Paper No. 32. Over the years, demand for education at all levels in Kenya has greatly outpaced supply, a gap that has been reduced by private schools catering to the needs of a wide range of socioeconomic groups. This gap will widen further unless the private sectors role is expanded, but private educational institutions face a number of serious constraints, primarily stemming from lack of adequate finance and, in many cases, limited management skills. This paper reviews the market and its constraints and focuses on conditions under which private financial institutions and the International Finance Corporation might play a useful role in the sector. Annexes include 1996 operating costs of Kenya's academic, technical, and vocational schools.

The mass privatization scheme put information about enterprise values in the public domain by allowing increasingly informed bidders to interact. This quickly differentiated enterprises with favorable prospects from those with unfavorable prospects. The design of the program served the objectives of speed and equity more than those of corporate governance.