The Financial Performance Of Privatised Firms: Evidence From Three Transition Economies

Abstract

There is a gap between the theoretical literature which almost unanimously advocates privatisation of banks and enterprises as a part of the solution for the commitment problem in economies in transition, and empirical evidence on how best to design a privatisation programme in order to secure an efficient use of resources. This thesis contributes to this debate by focusing on privatisation programmes and the financial performance of privatised enterprises in Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. This is the first comprehensive comparative study on the short and long run financial performance of privatisation share issues in these countries. The thesis builds on privatisation theories formulated in Perotti (1995) and Perotti and Biais (1997), and the empirical evidence on performance of privatisation share issues presented in Perotti and Guney (1993), Malatesta (1997), andMegginson et al. (1998a).Alternative privatisation schemes are assessed not only on the grounds of speed and effect on the state budget, but also with regard to the benefits they bring to domestic and foreign shareholders in privatised companies. The results provide support for the underlying political and economic theories on privatisation and reveal the importance of a choice of privatisation methods to enhance the financial performance of newly privatised enterprises in transition economies.iii