The restructuring of large enterprises has received much attention in the transition of centrally planned economies to market economies. The need to transform these enterprises into viable firms is widely acknowledged. The extent of such restructuring and the determinants that underlie a...

The Czech Republic's mass-privatization scheme changed the governance of many firms in a short time. The authors show that mass privatization was effective in improving firm management because of the concentrated ownership structure that resulted. For a cross section of 706 firms for the period...

The author discusses how East Germany is faring 12 months after the big bang unification with West Germany. The experience with the German unification to date raises the question whether there would have been alternative and better courses of action. Such options can be considered in three broad...

The financial sector should be active in enterprise restructuring in the transitional economies, and should help channel resources to the private sector. What will best help the sector achieve these tasks: gradual reform or radical reform? Liberalization and privatization are the most urgent...

What kind of privatization program is best suited to stimulate enterprise restructuring in former centrally planned economies? One view, expressed by most Western business and political leaders, is that privatization is best pursued case by case, with emphasis on sales to new owners, including...

This report analyzes the World Bank's experience with project analysis from a sample of 1,105 projects. The authors compare estimated rates of return at appraisal with re-estimated rates of return at the project completion. Their findings confirm a high degree of uncertainty in project analysis....

The ultimate objective of economic reforms in Central and Eastern Europe is the creation of flexible and efficient market economies. Attaining this objective requires comprehensive action on at least four fronts: macro-economic stabilization, price and market reforms, privatization of state...

As many East Asian countries plunged into economic decline, the structure of concentrated ownership and associated corporate governance, along with weak corporate performance, have been blamed for the crisis. There is little empirical evidence, however, of the nature of ownership structures in...

Weaknesses in the corporate sector have increasingly been cited as important factors in financial crises in both emerging markets and industrial countries. Analysts have pointed to weak corporate performance and risky financing patterns as major causes of the East Asian financial crisis. And...

The authors investigate the activities of the Bulgarian competition office, the Commission for the Protection of Competition, for the years 1991-95. They provide descriptive statistics on the industry incidence of investigations, the types of behavior investigated, and the frequency with which...