According to previous studies, privatization of SOEs leads to significant efficiency improvements. However, recent studies reported that privatization does not have a significant efficiency improvement effect. This paper analyses the change in efficiency of 117 privatized companies in 31 countries from 1980 to 2010. Among the three indicators used as indicators of efficiency: cost per unit, earnings before interest and taxes per employee, and total asset turnover, the one that showed a clear improvement was the total asset turnover. Meanwhile, cost per unit deteriorated significantly, but then started to recover. And the movements of this indicator is consistent with the implications of Perotti (1995)'s signaling model, which is the theoretical basis of privatization. The earnings before interest and taxes per employee continues to deteriorate over the whole sample period. Therefore, it is judged that privatization authorities should strive to develop more sophisticated and careful privatization programs to improve the efficiency of privatized companies.
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