Industrial Restructuring and Microeconomic Adjustment in Poland: A Cross-Sectoral Approach

Shocks and Adjustment by Firms in Transition: A Comparative Study

“…In most sectors, there was not even any operational business contact with western firms. The early mass privatization strategy did not rely on foreign investment (see Estrin, 1994). There was even less foreign interest in our sample of Polish firms; only a few cases of even operational business contact.…”

“…Thus, though more similar to Polish firms in terms of perceived viability, Czech and Slovak firms were more comparable to the better Hungarian firms in terms of their short-run responses. There is also little evidence of a sectoral pattern underlying the degree of short-term responsiveness; the intercountry pattern dominated the intersectoral one (see Estrin and Richet, 1994).…”

“…Moreover, the impact of the first wave of privatization on management thinking in the CSFR is evident in the responses; there were major changes in enterprises' attitude toward their long-run strategy in Czechoslovakia during the study due to the first wave of mass privatization. The cases highlight that, in the CSFR, proposals to invest, innovate, and restructure were all linked to a privatization process that encouraged the submission of competing schemes to privatize and restructure firms, and that only rarely entailed the involvement of foreigners (Estrin, 1994). Note.…”

“…The growing literature on economic reform highlights macroeconomic stabilization, liberalization, privatization, and institutional reform as the foundations of successful transition. Many of the essential institutional reforms have also been enacted or are under discussion (see, e.g., Portes, 1993;Aslund, 1994), but while there has been discussion of the mechanics of privatization (Estrin, 1994;Frydman et al, 1993), there is little information on how the reforms have impacted on the economic behavior and choices of firms and on their responses to the new market environment. Moreover, though the effectiveness of enterprise adjustment holds the key to successful transition (Kornai, 1990;Lipton and Sachs, 1991), the empirical literature on this subject is small.…”

“…It can be seen that the firms in the three samples are typically larger than the industry average, especially in 8 Macroeconomic and institutional developments are summarized in Balcerovicz and Gelb (1994) and the EBRD Transition Report (1994). Estrin (1994) outlines the evolution of privatization policies. The case writers' own evaluation of the situation in each country are contained in Belka, et al (1993), Matesová (1994), and Török (1994).…”