This study of how privatization and stabilization (hard budget constraints) affect enterprise behavior shows that privatized firms consistently outperform state enterprises in productivity growth. Total factor productivity improves in privatized firms, where there is also less overemployment...

We document changes in the performance of over 6000 privatized and state-owned manufacturing enterprises in seven Eastern European countries over the initial transition period. We find that privatization is associated with significant increases in sales revenues and labor productivity, and, to a...

In this paper, we analyze financial and operating data (1992 to 1995) for more than 6,300 industrial firms in seven countries of the region: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovak Republic and Slovenia. These countries have adopted different policies to encourage enterprise...