In this paper we provide the first analysis of whether rushed privatizations, usually carried out under fiscal duress, increase or decrease firms' efficiency, scale of operation (size) and employment. Using a large panel of firm-level data from Poland over 1995-2015, we show that rushed...

We provide the first analysis of whether “rushed privatizations” of state-owned enterprises, often carried out under fiscal duress and sometimes in collaboration with external institutions (such as IMF, ECB and EC, as in e.g., Greece), increase or decrease firms’ efficiency, scale of...

Despite an apparent consensus in the literature that privatization leads to increased productivity and profitability of firms, the problem of endogeneity bias is profound and has been emphasized in a number of meta-analyses. We propose a new method to address the endogeneity bias and apply it to...