Download or read book Privatisation Politics and Economic Performance in Hungary written by Zoltan Antal-Mokos and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998-02-05 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do some privatisations apparently fail to produce expected positive results? Economic theory tells us that privatisation should improve efficiency, but this book, originally published in 1998, suggests that political bargaining in the process of privatisation works against the results we expect to achieve. To gain a better understanding of what privatisation is really about, power at a firm level needs to be understood. Privatisation is a gradually unfolding, evolutionary process, often with defective corporate governance. Politicking can take priority over performance, with the result that efficiency is ignored and profitability is affected. This is a comprehensive book on privatisation which focuses on micro-level behavioural issues and it uses exceptionally rich case evidence to illustrate that privatisation is more about politics than performance.
Download or read book Privatization in Hungary Poland and Czechoslavakia written by P. G. Hare and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 81 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Privatisation in Hungary the Economic Policy of the New Government written by and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 17 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Political Economy of Hungary written by Adam Fabry and published by Palgrave Pivot. This book was released on 2019-04-13 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the political economy of Hungary from the mid-1970s to the present. Widely considered a ‘poster boy’ of neoliberal transformation in post-communist Eastern Europe until the mid-2000s, Hungary has in recent years developed into a model ‘illiberal’ regime. Constitutional checks-and-balances are non-functioning; the independent media, trade unions, and civil society groups are constantly attacked by the authorities; there is widespread intolerance against minorities and refugees; and the governing FIDESZ party, led by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, controls all public institutions and increasingly large parts of the country’s economy. To make sense of the politico-economical roller coaster that Hungary has experienced in the last four decades, Fabry employs a Marxian political economy approach, emphasising competitive accumulation, class struggle (both between capital and labour, as well as different ‘fractions of capital’), and uneven and combined development. The author analyses the neoliberal transformation of the Hungarian political economy and argues that the drift to authoritarianism under the Orbán regime cannot be explained as a case of Hungarian exceptionalism, but rather represents an outcome of the inherent contradictions of the variety of neoliberalism that emerged in Hungary after 1989.
Download or read book The Retreat of Liberal Democracy written by Gábor Scheiring and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-08-26 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the product of three years of empirical research, four years in politics, and a lifetime in a country experiencing three different regimes. Transcending disciplinary boundaries, it provides a fresh answer to a simple yet profound question: why has liberal democracy retreated? Scheiring argues that Hungary’s new hybrid authoritarian regime emerged as a political response to the tensions of globalisation. He demonstrates how Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz exploited the rising nationalism among the working-class casualties of deindustrialisation and the national bourgeoisie to consolidate illiberal hegemony. As the world faces a new wave of autocratisation, Hungary’s lessons become relevant across the globe, and this book represents a significant contribution to understanding challenges to democracy. This work will be useful to students and researchers across political sociology, political science, economics and social anthropology, as well democracy advocates.
Download or read book Privatization in Eastern Europe written by Roman Frydman and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 1994-01-01 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Eastern Europe privatization is now a mass phenomenon. The authors propose a model of it by means of an illustration from the example of Poland, which envisages the free provision of shares in formerly public undertakings to employees and consumers, and the provision of corporate finance from foreign intermediaries. One danger that emerges is that of bureaucratization. On the broader canvas, mass privatization implies the reform of the whole system, the creation of a suitable economic infrastructure for a market economy and the institutions of corporate governance. The authors point out the need for a delicate balance between evolution - which may be too slow - and design - which brings the risk of more government involvement than it is able to manage. A chapter originating as a European Bank working paper explores the banking implications of setting up a totally new financial sector with interlocking classes of assets. The economic effects merge into politics as the role of the state is investigated. Teachers and graduate students of public/private sector economies, East European affairs; advisers to bankers or commercial companies with Eastern European interests.
Download or read book Reform in Eastern Europe written by Olivier J. Blanchard and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1993-01-29 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This incisive report identifies and describes the major policy choices to be made and discusses what will work and what will not.
Download or read book Privatization written by John R. Nellis and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1992-01-01 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Governance, as defined by the World Bank in its 1992 report, Governance and Development, is the manner in which power is exercised in the management of a country's economic and social resources for development. The report deemed it is within the Bank's mandate to focus on the following: -the process by which authority is exercised in the management of a country's economic and social resources -the capacity of governments to design, formulate, and implement policies and discharge functions. Also available: Governance: The World Bank's Experience (ISBN 0-8213-2804-2) Stock No. 12804.
Download or read book The Political Economy of Privatization written by Thomas Clarke and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2005-08-17 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book considers the many facets of the privatization process in advanced industrialised countries, along with the marketization of Eastern Europe, and the pressures on developing countries to adopt privatization as the route to growth.
Download or read book Reforming Infrastructure written by Ioannis Nicolaos Kessides and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2004 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Electricity, natural gas, telecommunications, railways, and water supply, are often vertically and horizontally integrated state monopolies. This results in weak services, especially in developing and transition economies, and for poor people. Common problems include low productivity, high costs, bad quality, insufficient revenue, and investment shortfalls. Many countries over the past two decades have restructured, privatized and regulated their infrastructure. This report identifies the challenges involved in this massive policy redirection. It also assesses the outcomes of these changes, as well as their distributional consequences for poor households and other disadvantaged groups. It recommends directions for future reforms and research to improve infrastructure performance, identifying pricing policies that strike a balance between economic efficiency and social equity, suggesting rules governing access to bottleneck infrastructure facilities, and proposing ways to increase poor people's access to these crucial services.
Download or read book Bureaucrats in Business written by and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1995 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Refer review of this policy book in 'Journal of International Development, vol. 10, 7, 1998. pp.841-855.
Download or read book The Politics of Greed written by Andrew Harrison Schwartz and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2006-10-12 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the dissolution of the Soviet Empire, it seemed that market capitalism had triumphed and that democracy might replace authoritarian regimes. Economic reformers in the former Eastern Bloc rushed to liberalize prices and transfer state assets to private hands. They assumed that private owners in a market setting would have no choice but to behave rationally—that is, to invest in restructuring privatized enterprises so as to maximize profits. They also assumed that these owners would perceive a stable institutional environment as conducive to economic success and thus become a powerful lobby in favor of the rule of law, paving the way for democracy. The post-communist reality turned out to be very different. Private owners found that in a weak state with limited laws and regulations and ineffective corporate governance structures, it was more lucrative to steal enterprise assets and exploit opportunities for arbitrage than to restructure enterprises. The lesson learned is that not all forms of private ownership are the same. As this book's in-depth political history of privatization in Central and Eastern Europe demonstrates, the way that assets are privatized matters, both with respect to national economic performance and the successful development of the rule of law. Andrew Harrison Schwartz had unprecedented access to high-level Czech government officials during the Czech Republic's privatization process. This book is the result of the unique insights he gained and the innovative analytical framework he subsequently developed—ownership regime theory—which for the first time places ownership structures at the center of political transition analysis. Engaging and important, The Politics of Greed applies ownership regime theory to a broad range of post-communist privatization cases, including those of the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Russia, and Ukraine.
Download or read book Making a Market written by Nemat Shafik and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1993 with total page 62 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The mass privatization scheme put information about enterprise values in the public domain by allowing increasingly informed bidders to interact. This quickly differentiated enterprises with favorable prospects from those with unfavorable prospects. The design of the program served the objectives of speed and equity more than those of corporate governance.
Download or read book Post Communist Mafia State written by B lint Magyar and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2016-03-01 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Having won a two-third majority in Parliament at the 2010 elections, the Hungarian political party Fidesz removed many of the institutional obstacles of exerting power. Just like the party, the state itself was placed under the control of a single individual, who since then has applied the techniques used within his party to enforce submission and obedience onto society as a whole. In a new approach the author characterizes the system as the ?organized over-world?, the ?state employing mafia methods? and the ?adopted political family', applying these categories not as metaphors but elements of a coherent conceptual framework. The actions of the post-communist mafia state model are closely aligned with the interests of power and wealth concentrated in the hands of a small group of insiders. While the traditional mafia channeled wealth and economic players into its spheres of influence by means of direct coercion, the mafia state does the same by means of parliamentary legislation, legal prosecution, tax authority, police forces and secret service. The innovative conceptual framework of the book is important and timely not only for Hungary, but also for other post-communist countries subjected to autocratic rules. ÿ
Download or read book Privatizing Russia written by Maxim Boycko and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1997-01-22 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Privatizing Russia offers an inside look at one of the most remarkable reforms in recent history. Having started on the back burner of Russian politics in the fall of 1991, mass privatization was completed on July 1, 1994, with two thirds of the Russian industry privately owned, a rapidly rising stock market, and 40 million Russians owning company shares. The authors, all key participants in the reform effort, describe the events and the ideas driving privatization. They argue that successful reformers must recognize privatization as a process of depoliticizing firms in the face of massive opposition: making the firm responsive to market rather than political influences. The authors first review the economic theory of property rights, identifying the political influence on firms as the fundamental failure of property rights under socialism. They detail the process of coalition building and compromise that ultmately shaped privatization. The main elements of the Russian program -- corporatization, voucher use, and voucher auctions -- are described, as is the responsiveness of privatized firms to outside investors. Finally, the market values of privatized assets are assessed for indications of how much progress the country has made toward reforming its economy. In many respects, privatization has been a great success. Market concepts of property ownership and corporate management are shaking up Russian firms at a breathtaking pace, creating powerful economic and political stimuli for continuation of market reforms. At the same time, the authors caution, the political landscape remains treacherous as old-line politicians reluctantly cede their property rights and authority over firms.
Download or read book Seeking the Best Master written by Miklós Szanyi and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2020-02-01 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The economic crisis of 2008–2009 signaled the end of the Post-Washington Consensus on restricting the role of the state in economic and development policy. Since then, state ownership and state intervention have increased worldwide. This volume offers a comparative analysis of the evolution of direct state intervention in the economy through state-owned companies in Austria, Brazil, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Turkey, Singapore, and Slovenia. Each case study includes substantial explanations of historical, cultural, and institutional contexts. All the contributors point to the complex nature of the current revival in state economic interventions. The few models that are successful cannot hide the potential problems of excessive state intervention, linked to high levels of moral hazard. State-owned enterprises are primary tools of market and price manipulation for political purposes. They can be used outright for rent seeking. Yet state-owned enterprises can also play important roles in prestigious national initiatives, like major public works or high-profile social and sports events. The authors conclude that after the uniform application of democratic market economic principles, the 2000s witnessed a path-dependent departure from standard economic and political operating procedures in developed countries.
Download or read book Privatization in Latin America written by Alberto Chong and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2005-03-15 with total page 526 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Privatization is under attack. Beginning in the 1980s, thousands of failing state-owned enterprises worldwide have been turned over to the private sector. But public opinion has turned against privatization. A large political backlash has been brewing for some time, infused by accusations of corruption, abuse of market power, and neglect of the poor. What is the real record of privatization and are the criticisms justified? 'Privatization in Latin America' evaluates the empirical evidence on privatization in a region that has witnessed an extensive decline in the state's share of production over the past 20 years. The book is a compilation of recent studies that provide a comprehensive analysis of the record of and accusations against privatization, with important recommendations for the future. Seven countries are investigated: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. This book will be vital to anyone interested in the privatization debate but especially to those involved in civil service reform, corporate governance, economic policy, finance, and anticorruption efforts. 'Privatization is important but controversial. While economists typically favor it, others are skeptical. This book provides strong scientific evidence that privatization has been beneficial for many Latin American countries, although some privatizations failed and some groups in society lost out. As usual, the devil is in the details: how privatization is carried out and what reforms accompany it are crucial to its success. The book is definitely an invaluable contribution to the privatization debate.' --Oliver Hart, Andrew E. Furer Professor of Economics, Harvard University
