In the hierarchy of China's state sector, both before and during the current reform period, government bureaucrats select and supervise state-owned enterprise (SOE) managers. The incentive problem of SOE managers has been studied carefully, but that of the bureaucrats has not. This paper uses a...

Belarus was among the few post-communist countries to resign from comprehensive market reforms and attempt to improve the efficiency of the economy through administrative means, leaving market mechanisms only an auxiliary role. Since its inception, the 'Belarusian economic model' has undergone...

What do state-owned enterprises (SOEs) do? How do they respond to market incentives? Can we expect substantial efficiency gains from trade liberalization in economies with a strong presence of SOEs? Using a new dataset of Vietnamese firms we document a set of empirical regularities...

In this paper we document the extent and reach of state capitalism around the world and explore its economic implications. We focus on governmental provision of capital to corporations – either equity or debt – as a defining feature of state capitalism. We present a stylized distinction...

This paper explores the influence of the State Capital Investing and Operating Company (SCIOC) pilot reform on SOE bailout using a staggered difference-in-differences model. Based on a sample of listed SOEs during 2011-2018, we find that when the real controllers of listed SOEs enter the list of...

This paper investigates two competing theories of soft budget constraints (SBC), namely the ownership hypothesis and the policy burden hypothesis. While the ownership hypothesis attributes the SBC problem to government ownership, the policy burden hypothesis predicts that privatization would not...

The article deals with problems of state capitalism. It can be defined as maximisation of political control over economy and society and it is used as the characteristics of systems which exist in China, Russia, Brazil, United Arab Emirates, etc. State capitalism used to be effective in early...

Why do some democracies persist while others break down? Some studies have suggested that economic development decreases the likelihood of authoritarian reversal, which is consistent with Milton Friedman's argument that economic freedom is necessary for political freedom. An empirical...