Privatization and Productivity in Romanian Industry: Evidence from a Comprehensive Enterprise Panel

John Earle and Almos Telegdy

No 326, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We construct and analyze a unique database with 1992-99 information on privatization transactions and labor productivity for the entire surviving population of initially state-owned industrial corporations in Romania. The data permit us to describe the post-privatization ownership structure and to test the effect of alternative privatization policies on firm performance in a panel framework. The results of OLS, LAD, and fixed-effects estimations consistently show a positive, highly significant effect of private ownership share on the level and growth of labor productivity, the estimates ranging from 13 to 32 log points for the level, and 9 to 16 for productivity growth. The strongest estimated impacts arise from sales to foreign and domestic blockholders, but insider and mass privatization are also estimated to have positive, although smaller, impacts on firm performance.

Keywords: restructuring; firm performance; ownership; Privatization; transition; Romania (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G32 G34 L32 L33 P20 P31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2001-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eff
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published - published in: Journal of Comparative Economics, 2002, 30 (4), 657-682

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp326.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp326

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().