Privatisation, corporate control and employment growth: Evidence from a panel of large Polish firms, 1996–2002

Abstract

Using panel data on large Polish firms this paper examines the relationship between corporate control structures, sales growth and the determinants of employment change during the period 1996-2002. We find that privatised and de novo firms are the main drivers of employment growth and that, in the case of de novo firms, it is foreign ownership which underpins the result. Interestingly, we find that being privatised has a positive impact on employment growth but that this impact is concentrated within a range of three to six years after privatisation. In contrast with the findings of earlier literature, we find evidence that there are no systematic differences in employment response to negative sales growth across the ownership categories. On the other hand, employment in state firms is less responsive to positive sales growth. From these combined results we infer that the behaviour of state firms is constrained by both insider rent sharing and binding budget constraints. Consistent with this, we find that privatised companies, three to six years post-privatisation, are the firms for whom employment is most responsive to positive sales growth and as such, offer the best hope for rapid labour market expansion.

Institutions, Finance and the Level of Development: the Impact on Entrepreneurship in Transition

“…New firm entry provides a churning effect to the economy, fosters development, innovation and economic change (Hirschman, 1958;Baumol, 1990;McMillan and Woodruff, 2002;Mickiewicz et al, 2005;Berkovitz and Jackson, 2006;Klapper et al, 2006). However, where institutions are weak entrepreneurs either do not undertake new projects or restrict their activities to unproductive ones, with a resulting loss of efficiency (Glaeser et al, 2003;Johnson et al, 1997;Baumol, 1990).…”

Off-farm labor supply and labor markets in rapidly changing circumstances: Bulgaria during transition

“…2 Some researchers also use farm characteristics as proxies for farm income (Ruben and Van den berg, 2001). 3 See, for example, Bolton et al (1992), Burda, Bean and Svejnar (1993), Blanchard, Commander and Coricelli (1995), Konings, Lehman and Schaffer (1996), Svejnar (1996Svejnar ( , 1999, Walsh and Whelan (2001), Schntzer and Andreyeva (2002), Faggio and Konings (2003), Bezemer (2004), Mickiewicz, Gerry and Bishop (2005), Koford and Miller (2006). that examine the impact of macroeconomic and structural changes on the nature of the off-farm labor market in these countries.…”