Ebook: Privatizing Eastern Europe: The Role of Markets and Ownership in the Transition

This volume is meant to be a modest contribution to the ongoing debate about the transitions away from the administrative planning environment typical of the former communist regimes. The central subject matter is a fairly special one, namely the privatization of these economies together with the restoration and effective monitoring of property rights. These are paramount tasks of the ongoing transformations once progress toward pOlitical democracy is secured. Though I would not allot divestment of existing state-owned assets the kind of pivotal importance that some observers reserve for it, changing rules on the utilization of these assets is evidently at the core of what the transition toward market-based economic systems should be all about. Rather than examining the entire range of issues that surround the controvery on privatization, this volume is primarily concerned with the economics of taking the state out of the decision making about existing assets. Among the several aspects of this discussion three stand out. One is the establishment of clear property rights. This is fundamental to minimize trans­ action costs in an environment where decisions will increasingly be taken by independent economic agents acting on their own account. Second, I look only incidentally at the various angles of creating capital markets, particularly for existing assets, in these economies.

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With the revolutions in eastern Europe since mid-1989, two main transformations are envisaged: pluralistic political democracy and a market economy based largely on private property and self-interest. One element that straddles those two objectives is what to do with state-owned property during the transition from a planned to a market environment. Privatizing Eastern Europe looks at the economic goals that may be pursued in various ways: by taking the state out of the allocation of the service streams of existing capital assets in general and state-owned enterprises in particular.
The volume advocates the urgency of taking politics out of resource allocation. Since this cannot be done through divestment, particularly for large assets, it is imperative that alternatives be put in place at the earliest possible opportunity in the economic transformation. For petty assets (housing, small shops, handicrafts, restaurants, etc.) quick divestment is desirable. For other assets, the principal agent problem will need to be taken care of by investing management with the task of acting in the interest of real owners.