Polish State Enterprises and the Properties of Performance: Stabilization, Marketization, Privatization

International Trade and Restructuring in Eastern Europe

“…It should be noted, first of all, that irrespective of the transformation method privatized firms experienced a relatively sharp decline in profitability from January 1990 on. It should be added, however, that in the same period a similar drop in profitability was recorded for the whole economy, including all state-owned enterprises (see Dabrowski et al, 1991aDabrowski et al, , 1992a. Hence, the rapid decline in financial performances of privatized firms should be interpreted not as a result of ownership transformations, but rather as the consequence of the introduction of the stabilization program in Poland.…”

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

“…In addition to capital market regulation stressed by Glaeser et al (2001), Nellis (1999) points to the importance of an effective mechanism for enterprise exit (bankruptcy). The importance of hard budget constraints has also been clearly shown by research (see, e.g., Dabrowski et al 1991;Carlin et al, 1995), which indicates that avoidance of government subsidies (whether explicit or implicit) or bailouts is important for the economic performance of firms.…”

“…A number of surveys of the literature on the subject show quite conclusively that private ownership is generally superior to state ownership of industry (Boubakri & Cosset, 1998;Nellis, 1999;Megginson & Netter, 2001;Djankov & Murrell, 2002 Competition. One of the key factors of interest here is competition in product markets, which can be at least as important as privatization itself for inducing improvements in the efficiency of the management of an enterprise (Dabrowski et al, 1991;Pinto et al, 1993;Carlin et al, 1995;Nellis, 1999;Djankov & Murrell, 2002). Privatization will often fail to improve enterprise performance if the privatized enterprises are not forced to compete in the market, either with other domestic enterprises or with foreign competitors (or both).…”

Solidarity’s Abandonment of Worker Councils: Redefining Employee Stakeholder Rights in Post‐socialist Poland

“…In the 1980s, when Solidarity was still illegal, many trade union activists utilized these structures to promote free trade unionism (Chorodowski 1992). Moreover, in the years following the 1989 transition of power, employee councils provided important institutional support to Solidarity, often facilitating the removal of managers closely aligned with the Communist Party (Dabrowski et al 1991). Although there is anecdotal evidence that some pro-market Solidarity activists feared that employee councils might use hold-up power to slow privatization, most of these concerns emanated from government ministries and not from the union structures themselves.…”