Jan Svejnar

Transition Economies: Performance and Challenges

I present data and assess the first twelve years of the transition from plan to market. Transformations have taken place, but the income gap between the transition and advanced economies has widened. Transition countries further east have performed worse than those further west, but policies matter. All countries carried out quickly Type I reforms, such as macroeconomic stabilization, price liberalization, small-scale privatization, and breakup of state-owned enterprises. They differed in Type II reforms, such as large-scale privatization and development of banking and legal systems. Countries that developed a functioning legal framework and corporate governance have performed better than others.

Effects of Privatization and Ownership in Transition Economies

In this paper, we evaluate what we have learned to date about the effects of privatization from the experiences during the last fifteen to twenty years in the postcommunist (transition) economies and, where relevant, China. We distinguish separately the impact of privatization on efficiency, profitability, revenues, and other indicators and distinguish between studies on the basis of their econometric methodology in order to focus attention on more credible results. The effect of privatization is mostly positive in Central Europe, but quantitatively smaller than that to foreign owners and greater in the later than earlier transition period. In the Commonwealth of Independent States, privatization to foreign owners yields a positive or insignificant effect while privatization to domestic owners generates a negative or insignificant effect. The available papers on China find diverse results, with the effect of nonstate ownership on total factor productivity being mostly positive but sometimes insignificant or negative.

BARGAINING POWER, FEAR OF DISAGREEMENT, AND WAGE SETTLEMENTS: THEORY AND EVIDENCE FROM U.S. INDUSTRY

The paper develops and estimates a theoretical model of wage determination and union-nonunion wage differentials. In order to overcome the institutional ctiticisms of the formal bargaining literature, the paper generalizes the Nash-Zeuthen-Harsanyi model by linking the solution to the institutional concepts of bargaining power and fear or cost of disagreement and by making the outcome depend not only on endogenous but also on exogenous factors. An operational specification of bargaining power and fear of disagreement allows the model to be estimated with data covering twelve companies and trade unions during the period from mid-1950s to the late 1970s. While giving limited support to the NashZeuthen-Harsanyi solution, the empirical analysis indicates that the bargaining outcome usually deviates from the Nash-Zeuthen-Harsanyi point and, in accordance with the institutionalist claim, that it varies significantly with exogenous factors. Contrary to the traditional labor economics view, the results do not support the general conclusion that the bargaining solution lies on the marginal revenue product curve of labor. Instead, the relevant coefficients suggest that for many firms and unions the outcome might be better characterized by the efficient contract (vertical contract curve).

Investment, Credit Rationing, and the Soft Budget Constraint: Evidence from Czech Panel Data

Strategic restructuring of firms through investment is key to a transition from plan to market. Using data on industrial firms in the Czech Republic during 1992-98, we find that (a) foreign owned companies invest the most and cooperatives the least, (b) private firms do not invest more than state-owned ones and (c) cooperatives and small firms are credit rationed. Given the large volume of non-performing bank loans to firms and the high rate of investment of large state owned and private firms, our findings also suggest that these firms operate under a soft budget constraint. Estimates of a dynamic model, together with the support for the neoclassical model, suggest that firms started to behave consistently with profit-maximization.

Unemployment and the Social Safety Net During Transitions to a Market Economy: Evidence from the Czech and Slovak Republics

The authors investigate the remarkably short unemployment spells in the Czech Republic compared to Slovakia and other Central and East European economies. They estimate hazard functions and find that 40 to 5O percent of the difference in unemployment durations between the two republics is accounted for by differences in demographics and demand conditions. The remainder is explained by differences in coefficients, proxying the behavior of firms, individuals, and institutions. In both republics, the unemployment compensation system has a moderately negative effect on the exit rate from unemployment. Policymakers, hence, have latitude in providing adequate social safety nets without jeopardizing efficiency. Copyright 1998 by American Economic Association.

Objectives and Constraints of Entrepreneurs: Evidence from Small and Medium Size Enterprises in Russia and Bulgaria

We analyze the principal objectives and constraints of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), using data from a survey of 437 owners and top managers (CEOs) of SMEs in Russia and Bulgaria. The CEOs display similar views and identify a small number of specific constraints as being the most important ones. The constraint on external financing is a particularly serious one and the SMEs use internal finance as a fall-back option. Our econometric analysis indicates that characteristics of the entrepreneur, firm and the firms environment are important but varying determinants of which constraints are identified as the most important ones. Our results also suggest that the nature of disruption of production and of the financial constraints after the fall of central planning was more ubiquitous and all-encompassing in Russia than in Bulgaria.

The productivity effects of worker participation: Producer cooperatives in western economies

The paper presents econometric estimates of productivity effects of various forms of worker participation in Western producer cooperatives. While the effects vary across institutional settings, the overall effect is found to be positive. The positive effects are found most uniformly with respect to profit sharing and, to a slightly lesser extent, individual capital (share) ownership and participation in decision-making by workers. The size of individual worker loans to the coop is unrelated to productivity, while collective capital ownership exhibits an insignificant or a negative productivity effect.

Participation, profit sharing, worker ownership and efficiency in Italian producer cooperatives

This paper analyses the productivity effects of worker participation in management, profit-sharing and worker ownership. It develops an estimating framework and applies it to firm-level data for Italian producer cooperatives, one of the largest and fastest growing systems of producer cooperatives in industrialized Western economies. The results are of particular interest because they provide a systematic test of numerous hypotheses from the literature on incentives and efficiency in participatory and labour-managed firms. Moreover, they may help in formulating public policy guidelines in the numerous Western countries that consider participation, worker ownership of assets and profitsharing as possible means for increasing workplace democracy, stimulating productivity and reducing unemployment owing to plant shutdowns.1 The results of our study are more conclusive than all existing findings with respect to efficiency of participatory, profit-sharing and worker-owned firms because we were able to use an unusually large panel of firms. The firms are both small and large (equivalent to the Fortune 500), and the variable values for participation, profit-sharing and worker ownership vary widely both crosssectionally and over time (see Table 1). Since our data relate exclusively to

The Economics of Joint Ventures in Less Developed Countries

The paper examines the microeconomic (partial equilibrium) behavior of joint ventures established between transnational corporations and domestic partners in less developed countries. It focuses on issues relating to resource allocation and profit distribution under various institutional scenarios. The analysis places special emphasis on the role of bargaining power, transfer pricing, stock ownership, and profit shares of the parties, and the responsiveness of joint ventures to national development goals. Some of the results apply to wholly owned subsidiaries of transnational corporations, local firms, and licensing arrangements, which emerge as special cases.

Origin and concentration

We analyse the effects of different types and concentration of ownership on performance using a large population of firms in the Czech Republic after mass privatization. Specifications based on first-differences combined with instrumental variables show that the performance effects of different types and concentration of ownership are limited when compared to earlier studies. Often, concentrated ownership has a positive effect, a finding that supports the agency theory. The positive effect of foreign ownership is detected primarily for majority ownership and for ownership by foreign industrial firms. The state as a holder of the golden share has a positive effect on employment and sometimes, also on output and profitability. Overall, our results highlight the benefits of strategic restructuring accompanied by an inflow of new capital and managerial culture.