We survey empirical studies examining privatisation's effects in developing economies. Most of these studies find that privatisation yields improvements in the operating and financial performance of divested firms, and only a handful document outright performance declines after privatisation. Almost all studies that examine post-privatisation changes in output, efficiency, profitability, capital investment spending and leverage document significant increases in the first four measures and significant declines in leverage. The studies examined here are far less unanimous regarding the impact of privatisation on employment levels in privatised firms. Studies that explicitly address the sources of post-privatisation performance improvement using data from multiple non-transition economies tend to find stronger efficiency gains for firms in regulated industries, in firms that restructure operations after privatisation, and in countries providing greater amounts of shareholder protection. Copyright (c) 2006 The Authors; Journal compilation (c) 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.