Large-scale Private Research Articles

Let the markets begin: The interplay between free prices and privatisation in early transition

This paper revisits the period of early post-communist transition to study the immediate impact on economic growth of the interplay between price liberalisation and large-scale privatisation in 27 economies. The trajectories along these two dimensions were quite different across transition economies in the period under scrutiny – this diversity is well mirrored by available indicators, which I use to approach empirically the interaction between that pair of reforms. My estimates suggest that the negative short-run effect of privatisation may be counterweighted by the existence of a system of non-distorted price signals. These results seem to be in broad agreement with previous analyses, which I review briefly. Given the small size of my sample and other possible data issues, particular care is taken when examining the robustness of the findings. While not rejecting earlier explanations (e.g. based on the importance of initial conditions, namely the dimension of inherited distortions in production), this paper offers the suggestion of an additional view on why the so-called transformational recession was deeper in some countries than in others – countries which have privatised without fully liberalising prices may have experienced more economic harm.

Determinants of technical efficiency in agriculture in new EU member states from Central and Eastern Europe

Technical efficiency in agriculture of 10 new EU member states is analysed by Data Envelopment Analysis and econometric panel data analysis. Technical efficiency in agriculture is significantly positively associated with agricultural factor endowments, average farm size, farm specialisation, small-scale farms, and technological change. Foreign direct investments have an ambiguous effect. Reform and institutional developments, large-scale privatisation and price liberalisation, and urban- rural income gap are associated with technical efficiency in agriculture positively. An increase in technical efficiency in agriculture and the development of the rural economy are seen as a strategy to boost the level of living standards in agriculture and in rural areas.

Between competition imperative and Europeanisation: the case of Higher Education reform in Poland

While the Europeanisation of Higher Education (HE) systems has triggered much debate, the relationship between European factors and domestic economic processes, has been less thoroughly analysed. This article analyses HE reforms in the light of two parallel processes, which have shaped this sector: the introduction of market mechanisms and a gradual Europeanisation. The Polish HE makes a good case study of the relationship between both processes as it has been shaped by the contingencies inherent to the establishment of a liberal economic regime. Another set of inputs originated from the conditionality of the EU accession process, which coincided with the launching of the Bologna Process. While the post-communist transformations entailed the large-scale privatisation of the HE system, the Bologna Process defined the role of the sector as supporting a ‘knowledge-based economy’, an agenda promoted by the Lisbon strategy and international institutions in the field. Trying to combine the study of policy practice and narratives this article takes into account the legislative outcomes as well as the reform debates based both on economic arguments and on the necessity to ‘catch up with Europe’.

Conflict translates environmental and social risk into business costs.

Sustainability science has grown as a field of inquiry, but has said little about the role of large-scale private sector actors in socio-ecological systems change. However, the shaping of global trends and transitions depends greatly on the private sector and its development impact. Market-based and command-and-control policy instruments have, along with corporate citizenship, been the predominant means for bringing sustainable development priorities into private sector decision-making. This research identifies conflict as a further means through which environmental and social risks are translated into business costs and decision making. Through in-depth interviews with finance, legal, and sustainability professionals in the extractive industries, and empirical case analysis of 50 projects worldwide, this research reports on the financial value at stake when conflict erupts with local communities. Over the past decade, high commodity prices have fueled the expansion of mining and hydrocarbon extraction. These developments profoundly transform environments, communities, and economies, and frequently generate social conflict. Our analysis shows that mining and hydrocarbon companies fail to factor in the full scale of the costs of conflict. For example, as a result of conflict, a major, world-class mining project with capital expenditure of between US$3 and US$5 billion was reported to suffer roughly US$20 million per week of delayed production in net present value terms. Clear analysis of the costs of conflict provides sustainability professionals with a strengthened basis to influence corporate decision making, particularly when linked to corporate values. Perverse outcomes of overemphasizing a cost analysis are also discussed.

Collusion in Markets Characterized by One Large Buyer: Lessons Learned from an Antitrust Case in Russia

This paper demonstrates that even established and verified facts of agreements among producers are not a sufficient condition for cartel identification and, as a consequence, prosecution of agreement participants. Such requires looking at institutional details and the wider context of these and similar appearances or occurrences of documents and actions when qualifying the actions of market participants and their effects. This paper discusses a recent antitrust case brought against Russian manufacturers of large diameter pipes (LDPs) that examined supposedly abusive practices by these firms that were contrary to the law on the Protection of Competition, which prohibits market division. The case under consideration illustrates the importance of investigating institutional details when qualifying the actions of market participants and their effects. An analysis of the materials in this case using modern economic theory indicates that the presence of collusion is inconsistent with the active participation of the main consumer of LDPs in that agreement. The chosen format for the cooperation between pipe manufacturing companies and OJSC Gazprom, namely indicative planning, may be explained from the perspective of reducing contract risk in an environment characterized by large-scale private investments.

Analysis of Large-Scale Privatisation in the Czech Republic in the Years 1991-2005 on the Sample of Selected Privatised Companies

The objective of this paper is to analyse, evaluate and compare the individual methods of Czechoslovak and Czech privatisation in the years 1991-2005 based on long-term economic indicators. The empirical research focuses on a sample of 60 companies privatised between 1991 and 2005 which were selected from the list of 3500 large-scale privatised firms in the Czech Republic by the National Property Fund of the Czech Republic and divided into three groups.

Tantangan yang Harus Dihadapi Pimpinan Organisasi SI/TI di Indonesia Tahun 2014 - 2016

The job challenge of the leaders of the organization unit of IS / IT (CIO) has been shifted from the beginning as well as supporting routine tasks becomes more complex and varied that support decisionmaking at the levels of supervisors, middle managers and even top leaders. The problem is for years 2014-2016 and job description of IS/IT leaders have shifted towards a more strategic longer. Pervasive computing capability and versatility of use IS / IT ecofriendly has become a reasonable claim. So that why the organization unit of the IS / IT will be led by a CIO and must be assisted by the CTO, COO and CPO. Organizational units IS/IT is not something monolithic anymore but is a combination of four functions simultaneously, namely operating computerized systems, developing systems, designing architecture and is able to identify new business needs. Every function requires a certain membership groups and different management strategies. Oriented activities in support of strategic business more importantly needed by companies or government agencies. The method used in this research is the study of literature and interviews with respondents. The results of the research conducted is that the duties and functions in a variety of major government agencies appears to look uniform and can be interpreted broadly so that needs to be made more specific for the central leadership organization unit of IS/IT to answer the challenges of the future. While the CIO job description of some large-scale private enterprises is highly variable and depends on the ability of the top management and also the creativity of CIO. Considering year 2014 is no longer, then it should be the top management of private companies and government agencies begin to prepare.
 Index Terms - Chief Information Officer, IS/IT organizational management strategy, job challenge

Adoption patterns and constraints pertaining to small-scale water lifting technologies in Ghana

Irrigation is a priority development agenda item in Ghana and other countries in sub-Saharan Africa. There is a genuine endeavor to increase public and large-scale private investment in the sector. The on-going smallholder-driven private irrigation development that is largely based on water lifting technologies is not yet fully appreciated. We propose that smallholders themselves can play a significant role in achieving national irrigation development plans, provided they have access to water lifting technologies, especially small motorized pumps. We analyze adoption patterns and constraints pertaining to water lifting technologies in Ghana and suggest interventions that would enhance wider dissemination. Currently, these technologies are largely accessible only to better-off farmers. The primary factors inhibiting wider application are poorly developed supply chains, lack of access to finance, high operational and maintenance costs, high output price risks, and lack of institutional support. To realize the potential of water lifting technologies, improvements are required in the entire value chain of lift irrigation systems.

After Google Book Search: Rebooting the Digital Library

The rejection of the Google Book Search settlement means that we are at a point of rebooting how we design our digital library future. There were many criticisms of GBS and the settlement but perhaps chief among those was the risk that approval of the settlement would have locked in a single approach to digital libraries. Google would have received unique access to the so-called orphan works and that would have provided it what may have been a decisive advantage against digital library competitors, both private and public. As we move forward on the orphan works, we need to do so with two principles in mind. First, we need to enable broad competing uses of the orphan works while, to the greatest extent possible, respecting the rights of the orphan works holders. Second, we should not repeat the mistake of the GBS settlement by somehow tilting the table in favor of digital library monopoly, either public or private.We should want to foster a rich digital library ecosystem. GBS makes clear that we can have large-scale private digital libraries. That is an important development and one that we should seek to enable. If we create use rights for copyrighted works for digital libraries, we should be sure to make those privileges available to both public digital libraries and private digital libraries such as GBS and its successors. Our existing statutory safe harbors for libraries favor noncommercial libraries and archives. The emergence of GBS suggests that that is too narrow a conception of what libraries can be in the digital age and we need a statutory scheme that supports that.

Cooperatives in Russia

Although the Russian cooperative movement today is represented by a substantial number of cooperatives of various types, it is difficult to determine their precise number, since they are not embraced by the state system of statistical survey. The Federal Statistic Agency (Rosstat) neither conducts surveys on the dynamics of cooperative development, nor distinguishes them from the total number of enterprises of a relevant sector. However, the International Labor Organization reckons that: a) About 12,000 agricultural cooperatives are spread over 60 regions of the Russian Federation; in addition, there are over 1,000 credit cooperatives; over 15,000 producer cooperatives; consumer cooperatives are over 7,000 hair dressing salons, about 11,000 clothes and footwear repair shops, about 2,000 enterprises engaged in housing construction and renovation, about 4,000 household appliances repair shops, and over 1,000 of pharmacies; b) The number of members of various types of cooperatives is about 60 million; with the assumption that the population of Russia is about 150 million, the degree of involvement can be determined to be about 40% or almost one third of the country. Such an extraordinary involvement of citizens is most probably a direct consequence of both the dissolution of the soviet economic system, not encouraging medium and large-scale private business initiatives, and of the dependency from the cultural heritage of the tsarist times. Not surprisingly, memories of the ancient tsarist and soviet models still influence modern cooperative law in Russia: on the one hand, the commune (obscina); on the other, the “kolkhoz”. Both were intended to be organizational models for agriculture, where indeed cooperatives first emerged. Considering the above, the paper gives an insight of the history of cooperatives in Russian, particularly focusing on the the transitions from tsarist to the soviet era, and from the soviet times to the perestroika. A second part of the paper provides the reader with information on modern Russian cooperative law.

Institutional Development as a Determinant of FDI Attractiveness in Southeast Europe

Normal 0 21 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 The aim of this paper is to research the institutionalenvironment in SEE countries (Albania, Bosnia andHerzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro,Romania and Serbia) and its importance in attracting FDIinflows. Several regression models are created to determinethe significance of chosen location determinants. The modelsinclude institutional variables about the transition progress,government effectiveness, rule of law, corruption, but alsovariables about the economic characteristics of the SEEregion such as GDP per capita, growth rate, inflation andwages. The results of the panel data analysis indicated theimportance of economic determinants (GDP p.c. andinflation) to FDI inflows, while among institutional factors,only corruption, large scale privatisation, the development oftrade and forex systems, and overall infrastructure reformhave a significant impact on FDI inflows. Property rightsfreedom and small scale privatisation are not significantvariables. When we reduce multicollinearity, weconclude that GDP p.c., inflation, the trade andforex systems, corruption and overall infrastructurereform remain significant variables in explaining theeconomic and institutional determinants of FDI inflows.

WHY INTERWAR LITHUANIA DID LOSE VILNIUS AND CONTEMPORARY LITHUANIA LAGS BEHIND ESTONIA?

Straipsnyje lyginamas nacionalinių pinigų įvedimas ir stabilizacija Pirmojoje ir Antrojoje Lietuvos Respublikose (LR I ir LR II). Šie diachroniniai palyginimai papildomi sinchroniniais – LR I lyginama su Estija, Latvija ir Lenkija, o LR II – su Estija ir Latvija, gretimomis šalimis, kurios vienu metu sprendė nacionalinės valstybės kūrimo ir makroekonominės stabilizacijos problemas. Ir vienoje, ir kitoje epochoje LR paskutinė įsivedė nacionalinius pinigus, nors tarpukariu tik Latvija aplenkė Lietuvą tuos pinigus galutinai stabilizuodama. Palyginimų tikslas yra išaiškinti LR vėlavimo priežastis ir jo padarinius. Pirmiausia išryškinami LR I ir LR II ekonominės situacijos pirmaisiais nepriklausomybės metais panašumai ir skirtumai. Išryškinant panašumus, parodoma, kad sovietinio komandinio-administracinio ūkio prototipas buvo Pirmojo pasaulinio karo laikų kaizerinės Vokietijos karinė administracinė ekonomika, kurios poligonu tapo Oberosto kraštas (apėmęs ir šiuolaikinės Lietuvos teritoriją), kur administracinė ūkinės veiklos kontrolė įgijo griežčiausias formas. Grįžimą prie kapitalistinės laisvosios rinkos ekonomikos ir makroekonominės pusiausvyros atkūrimą ankstyvuoju tarpukariu sukomplikavo nepaprastosios išlaidos nepriklausomybės karams, dar tik besikuriančioms nacionalinėms valstybėms neturint administracinių gebėjimų surinkti tradicinio tipo mokesčius. Visos Lietuvos kaimynės nepriklausomybės karus finansavo infliaciniu mokesčiu, pačioje nepriklausomybės pradžioje įsivedusios nacionalinius pinigus ir iki 2/3 visų valstybės pajamų gaudamos iš senjoražo. Vos ne tarp visų nepriklausomybės karus moderniaisiais laikais kariavusių šalių LR I unikali savo monetarine „neoliberalia iki neoliberalizmo“ finansų politika, išsivertusi be senjoražo pajamų, padovanotų Vokietijai, su kuria Lietuva iki pat 1922 m. išlaikė pinigų sąjungą. Nepriklausomybės atkūrimo laikais delsimą nutraukti pinigų sąjungą su buvusiu imperiniu siuzerenu (Rusija) lėmė Gedimino Vagnoriaus vyriausybės pasirinkimas ir po tarptautinio LR II nepriklausomybės pripažinimo 1991 m. rudenį tęsti pirmoje tų metų pusėje pasiteisinusias infliacijos lenktynes, kuriose išlošdavo sparčiausiai atlyginimus ir kainas keliančios rublio zonos narės. Taigi dėl taupios LR I finansų politikos ankstyvojo tarpukario Lietuva kentėjo tik dėl importuojamos iš Vokietijos infliacijos, atsikovojusi nepriklausomybę ir toliau išlaidavusi Lietuva infliaciją iš Rusijos ir importavo, ir eksportavo. 1992 m. rudenį talonui tapus vienintele teisėta mokėjimo priemone, LR II vyriausybė dar aštuonis mėnesius savo išlaidoms dengti naudojo infliacinį mokestį, vykdydama moraliai nepateisinamą taikos sąlygomis finansų politiką, kuri dėl masinės privatizacijos vykdymo artimomis hiperinfliacijai sąlygomis turėjo pragaištingų ilgalaikių padarinių Lietuvos ekonominei raidai – nulėmė jos didėjantį atsilikimą nuo Estijos. O tarpukario nepriklausomybės pradžios LR I vyriausybės padarė strateginę klaidą, atsisakydamos infliacinio mokesčio nepaprastosioms nepriklausomybės karo išlaidoms finansuoti. Jis mažiau gyventojų turinčioms ir ne mažiau už Lietuvą nuo Pirmojo pasaulinio karo veiksmų nukentėjusioms Estijai ir Latvijai davė išteklių mobilizuoti apie 70 000 vyrų kariuomenes. Vykdydama neadekvačią karo sąlygoms taupią ir atsakingą finansų politiką, valstietiškai šykšti Lietuva 1920 m. rudenį turėjo tik apie 30 000 vyrų kariuomenę, kuri buvo per maža ir silpna apginti Vilnių nuo vienos dvarponiškai išlaidžios Lenkijos (kuri kaip ir kitos Lietuvos kaimynės savo 1918–1920 m. karus finansavo iš infliacinio mokesčio pajamų) tariamai sukilusios divizijos.

Strategies for In Situ Home Improvement in Romanian Large Housing Estates

Socio-economic and physical change have visibly affected post-socialist cities, yet the state of decay of their inherited large housing estates has only deepened throughout the 1990s, despite the change in tenure through policies of large-scale privatisation. Housing disrepair has now reached a critical stage that requires rapid private and public intervention. This paper examines the extent to which Romanian block residents have been able to improve in situ their housing conditions since 2000, the strategies they employed and the challenges they faced. It focuses on the often ignored private domain of housing, flats and blocks, where changes are also likely to be less visible. By analysing the process of individual utility metering and the practice of collective block management, I argue that besides economics, the unregulated housing context and a relaxed legal culture have challenged individual and collective action and have generated a framework of housing privatism.

Contracting Out for Employment Services in the Netherlands: A Decade of Experience

Today many Western welfare states are under reform. An important part of these reforms is the introduction of forms of privatization. In many countries this has led to the increased use of contracts as a governance tool for the delivery of employment reintegration services. In this paper we describe the overall development of how Dutch local governments (municipalities) buy these kinds of services and analyze how they deal with the challenges associated with contracting out and more specifically the challenge of maintaining control over service delivery. For this we make use of data collected through a case study at nine municipalities and the analysis of about 20 tender documents used to buy these kinds of services.Based on our findings we conclude that the idea of large scale privatization of the delivery of employment reintegration services in the Netherlands must be revised. Indeed, these days’ municipalities appear to buy far less parts of the service task then was the case in the early years, when contracting out was introduced. Moreover, we find that municipalities buy services with a strong emphasis on maintaining control by limiting the discretionary leeway given to the agents when delivering the services. In addition, it becomes clear that for contracting out to be successful requires not only investment in drafting and designing suitable contracts but also requires significant investments in internal capacity for implementing, monitoring and managing the contracts used to deliver services. Something, that even in successful municipalities is not always given.Overall, we can conclude that over the years municipalities have learned that it requires a significant amount of internal capacities to maintain control over how services are delivered. This has meant that in part municipalities have chosen to provide a substantial part of the services internally as this provides for better control over service delivery. While at the same time the municipalities have developed a modular buying strategy that has allowed them to deconstruct the service task into more bite-size chunks. That in turn allow for easier digestion from a contracting perspective. Opting to buy those elements that are well suited to be contracted-out and keeping the elements that are difficult to contract for, closer to home

Der unverzichtbare Beitrag von Stiftungen zur Finanzierung des höheren Schulwesens in Preuβen im 19. Jahrhundert

This article investigates the funding of secondary schools in 19th-century Prussia which came from foundations and endowments given to these schools by private citizens and noblemen for various purposes. Such endowments were intended to provide scholarships for students attending secondary schools, and after finishing school for attending university as well as tuition waivers. Other endowments were intended for paying the salary of teachers, providing subsidies to widows of teachers and their daughters. Endowments were also created for the financing of school libraries, natural science cabinets and similar institutions. And last but not least, foundations and endowments contributed to the creation of a social welfare net for teachers and students in the form of health insurance and aid associations. This article focusses on schools across 19th-century Prussia. However, since Prussia annexed so many territories between 1740 and 1866, it also added a large number of schools to its education system. These schools and their foundations from Silesia, Hesse-Nassau, the Rhine Province and several other territories have been included in this study. In order to better understand the situation of these schools and their financial support through foundations, which often dated back several centuries, the article provides in several cases information for the period before the schools and territories became Prussian. By 1900 the total capital of endowments and foundations at Prussian secondary schools ran as high as 35–40 million marks. This seems to be a remarkable amount given that the state’s annual budget for schools was just 50 million marks. The money was, however, spread unequally across Prussia. There were rich and there were poor regions. Cologne had a significant concentration of foundations which were centralized in a specific administrative body. Berlin, with its Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster, had one of the richest schools in the country. These endowments are an expression of the large-scale private support for state- and municipally- run schools. It will be argued that this private support was essential for the smooth functioning of the educational system.

Energy Efficiency in Transition: Do Market-Oriented Economic Reforms Matter?

Global climate change and security of supply concerns pose significant challenges for sustainable development as well as the need to improve energy efficiency in transition and developing economies. Meanwhile, economic theory suggests that market-based economic policies and reforms are crucial for accelerating energy efficiency in developing and transition countries. Hence, this paper analyses the impacts of several market-oriented economic reforms on energy efficiency in the transition countries. The transition countries experienced a rapid marketization process that saw their economies transformed from central planning towards more market based economies since the early 1990s. The econometric results from the bias corrected fixed-effect analysis (LSDVC) suggest that both large and small scale privatisation process has been the sole driver of energy efficiency in transition countries. However, the lack of suitable institutions to support overall-market reforms implies that other market based economic reforms remain ineffective in improving energy efficiency in transition countries.

Exchange rate determination: a theory of the decisive role of central bank cooperation and conflict

Economists’ faith that variable exchange rates benevolently equilibrate has been empirically disconfirmed. That faith is here tackled at its theoretical core with an exchange rate model that although ultra abstract, includes the undeniable fundamentals of market power and differential goals of central bankers and large-scale private players. It permits a game theoretic analysis under the assumption that all agents maximize their payoffs. The paper then relaxes the assumption of maximising agents, allowing for a more complex and thus realistic second version of the model that is interpretable within SKAT, the Stages of Knowledge Ahead Theory of risk and uncertainty. In an experimental setting, this second version of the model points to: a) the inability of agents in central banks, governments and the private real and financial sectors to operate in maximising ways; b) destructive central bank conflict; and c) the widely discrepant outcomes arising from the dynamics of individual personality differences. The paper’s theoretical and empirical findings thus both point to the merits of a single world currency.

Public sector pay gap in Serbia during large-scale privatisation, by educational qualification

The paper explores the effect of large-scale privatization of public sector activities on public-private sector pay differential, for groups of workers according to educational qualification on average and across the pay distribution in Serbia, from 2004 until 2008. The paper finds that both unskilled and skilled men and women in the public sector saw significant improvements in their financial position relative to their private sector counterparts with the progress of the economic transition. The results showed that the size of the public sector pay premium declines both with higher educational level and higher percentile of earnings distribution. This indicates, between and within groups, the inequality-reducing feature of the public sector pay determination.

Governance and enterprise restructuring: the case of Macedonia

Purpose– This paper is a case study of the Republic of Macedonia and focuses on the development of governance and enterprise restructuring. Thus, country's effective corporate governance and corporate control, which impact enterprise restructuring, are essential in the analysis of market-driven restructuring through domestic financial institutions and markets. The data used in this article are analyzed with an econometric regression model, which as employed in this study examines the interrelationships between governance and enterprise restructuring and set of policies that influence the governance patterns. Two basic hypothesis are taken in the analysis: first, governance and enterprise restructuring depend on set of policies, such as, large-scale privatization, small-scale privatization, price liberalization, competition policy, trade and foreign exchange system, banking reform and interest rate liberalization, securities markets and non-bank financial institutions and overall infrastructure reform; and second, governance and enterprise restructuring improves over time due to imposed policies. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approach– The data used in this article are analyzed with an econometric regression model, which as employed in this study examines the interrelationships between governance and enterprise restructuring and set of policies that influence the governance patterns.Findings– There is still more to be done in order to bring these economies closer to the standards of developed ones. Indeed, it is needed considerable improvement of corporate governance, institution-building to control agency problems and imposing already adopted regulation, as well as, enforcing new enterprise restructuring policies, within existing policies of overall transition economy restructuring.Originality/value– This paper is a contribution to the research developing the business aspects of the Macedonian economy, as there is constant lack of scientific papers that deal with the specific issues of corporate governance and enterprise restructuring.

Facilitating Low-Carbon Investments: Lessons from Natural Gas

Decarbonisation of energy and transport infrastructure requires significant private sector investments. The natural gas industry has demonstrated such large scale private sector infrastructure investment over the last decades, typically using long-term contractual arrangements. Are therefore institutional frameworks necessary that facilitate long-term contracting or provide regulation reassuring about future resource streams associated with low-carbon infrastructure - or do factors idiosyncratic to natural gas explain the prevalence of long-term contracts in natural gas infrastructure investment? We identify four reasons for the use of long-term contracting arrangements. The transformation of the natural gas industry and regulatory structure has gradually reduced the rational for three of these reasons, suggesting that remaining rational, securing of revenue streams to finance investments has become the main motivation for the use of long-term contracts. This rational is not idiosyncratic to the natural gas industry, and thus suggests that long-term contracting can also play a significant role in facilitating low-carbon infrastructure investment. We furthermore discuss the role of institutional frameworks necessary for long-term contracting, and identify the significant role governments have been playing in sharing the counterparty risk inherent in long-term contracts.