Privatization of state-owned assets was a central economic reform of the 1980s and 1990s. Lack of data has made it impossible to judge the extent to which privatization has diminished the importance of state ownership in the economy or changed the performance of state-owned enterprises. This...

This article analyzes the experience with performance contracts between developing country governments and the managers of their state owned enterprises. It identifies how problems of information asymmetry, incentives, and commitment can lead to shirking. It applies this conceptual framework to...

Performance contracts (PCs)--contracts signed between the government and state enterprise managers--have been used widely in developing countries. China's experience with such contracts was one of the largest experiments with contracting in the public sector, affecting hundreds of thousands of...