IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/now/fntfin/0500000053.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Privatization, State Capitalism, and State Ownership of Business in the 21st Century

Author

Listed:
  • Megginson, William L.

Abstract

This study summarizes the economic and political developments relating to privatization, state capitalism, and state ownership of business since 2000 and then surveys the extensive recent research examining these issues empirically. Through the early 21st century, there was an unambiguous global trend towards reducing government ownership of business enterprise, but this trend has since at least been slowed, and perhaps even reversed. We discuss the factors that have promoted a global resurgence of state ownership, then define and analyze the new ideology labeled “state capitalism.†Recent research examines whether privatization improves the operating and financial performance of divested companies, as well as when, where and how governments decide to privatize individual companies and how these sales are priced. All the performance studies surveyed document significant improvements after companies are divested. Recent academic and professional research categorizes and evaluates various types of state owners; examines determinants of the level of state ownership; studies how state ownership impacts the valuation of corporate assets and examines the relative efficiency of state versus private ownership; and assesses how state ownership impacts corporate financial policies, especially capital investment. This research highlights that different types of state owners have very different impacts on corporate value and performance, and that state ownership generally has a significant, and mostly pernicious, impact on corporate investment and financial policies. The separate effect of state ownership on corporate valuation is less clear-cut. This survey also summarizes recent empirical research examining the relationship between state ownership of business assets and financial markets and institutions, and also surveys the literature examining political connections between politicians and corporate managers. Sovereign wealth fund research yields essentially benign findings, but almost all studies examining state-owned banking show that state ownership reduces banks’ efficiency. All the financial markets and institutions studies examined highlight the distortive effects and economic costs of bailouts and guarantees, and almost all the political connections studies find that these connections are privately beneficial but socially costly. Finally, the research surveyed here convinces the author that “state capitalism†is an essentially failed model.

Suggested Citation

  • Megginson, William L., 2017. "Privatization, State Capitalism, and State Ownership of Business in the 21st Century," Foundations and Trends(R) in Finance, now publishers, vol. 11(1-2), pages 1-153, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:now:fntfin:0500000053
    DOI: 10.1561/0500000053
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/0500000053
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1561/0500000053?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrei Shleifer, 1998. "State versus Private Ownership," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 133-150, Fall.
    2. Sapienza, Paola, 2004. "The effects of government ownership on bank lending," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 357-384, May.
    3. Piotroski, Joseph D. & Zhang, Tianyu, 2014. "Politicians and the IPO decision: The impact of impending political promotions on IPO activity in China," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(1), pages 111-136.
    4. Morck, Randall & Deniz Yavuz, M. & Yeung, Bernard, 2011. "Banking system control, capital allocation, and economy performance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(2), pages 264-283, May.
    5. Oum, Tae H. & Adler, Nicole & Yu, Chunyan, 2006. "Privatization, Corporatization, Ownership Forms and their Effects on the Performance of the World’s Major Airports," 47th Annual Transportation Research Forum, New York, New York, March 23-25, 2006 208026, Transportation Research Forum.
    6. Mühlenkamp, Holger, 2013. "From state to market revisited: more empirical evidence on the efficiency of public (and privately-owned) enterprises," MPRA Paper 47570, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Christian Wolf & Michael G. Pollitt, 2008. "Privatising national oil companies: Assessing the impact on firm performance," Working Papers EPRG 0805, Energy Policy Research Group, Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.
    8. O'Toole, Conor M. & Morgenroth, Edgar L.W. & Ha, Thuy T., 2016. "Investment efficiency, state-owned enterprises and privatisation: Evidence from Viet Nam in Transition," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 93-108.
    9. Oum, Tae H. & Adler, Nicole & Yu, Chunyan, 2006. "Privatization, corporatization, ownership forms and their effects on the performance of the world's major airports," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 109-121.
    10. Aidan R. VINING & Anthony E. BOARDMAN & Mark A. MOORE, 2014. "The Theory And Evidence Pertaining To Local Government Mixed Enterprises," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 85(1), pages 53-86, March.
    11. Wei, Zuobao & Xie, Feixue & Zhang, Shaorong, 2005. "Ownership Structure and Firm Value in China's Privatized Firms: 1991–2001," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 40(1), pages 87-108, March.
    12. Clifford Zinnes & Yair Eilat & Jeffrey Sachs, 2001. "The Gains from Privatization in Transition Economies: Is "Change of Ownership" Enough?," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 48(4), pages 1-7.
    13. Wolf, Christian, 2009. "Does ownership matter? The performance and efficiency of State Oil vs. Private Oil (1987-2006)," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(7), pages 2642-2652, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wang, Boya, 2018. "Ownership, institutions and firm value: Cross-provincial evidence from China," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 547-565.
    2. Fredrik N. G. Andersson & Katarzyna Burzynska & Sonja Opper, 2016. "Lending for growth? A Granger causality analysis of China’s finance–growth nexus," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 51(3), pages 897-920, November.
    3. Liu, Jinyu & Wang, Zhengwei & Zhu, Wuxiang, 2021. "Does privatization reform alleviate ownership discrimination? Evidence from the Split-share structure reform in China," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    4. Gkoumas, Konstantinos & van Balen, Mitchell & Tsakalidis, Anastasios & Pekar, Ferenc, 2022. "Evaluating the development of transport technologies in European research and innovation projects between 2007 and 2020," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    5. Ullah, Barkat, 2021. "Does innovation explain the performance gap between privatized and private firms?," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    6. De Nicola, Arianna & Gitto, Simone & Mancuso, Paolo, 2013. "Airport quality and productivity changes: A Malmquist index decomposition assessment," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 67-75.
    7. Adler, Nicole & Forsyth, Peter & Mueller, Juergen & Niemeier, Hans-Martin, 2015. "An economic assessment of airport incentive regulation," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 5-15.
    8. Dong, Gang Nathan & Gu, Ming & He, Hua, 2020. "Invisible hand and helping hand: Private placement of public equity in China," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    9. Doan, Anh-Tuan & Lin, Kun-Li & Doong, Shuh-Chyi, 2020. "State-controlled banks and income smoothing. Do politics matter?," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    10. Paraschi, Elen Paraskevi & Georgopoulos, Antonios & Papatheodorou, Andreas, 2020. "Abiotic determinants of airport performance: Insights from a global survey," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 33-53.
    11. Gong, Stephen X.H. & Cullinane, Kevin & Firth, Michael, 2012. "The impact of airport and seaport privatization on efficiency and performance: A review of the international evidence and implications for developing countries," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 37-47.
    12. Eduardo Levy Yeyati & Alejandro Micco & Ugo Panizza, 2004. "¿Debe el gobierno participar en la actividad bancaria? El papel de la banca propiedad del Estado y de la banca de fomento," Research Department Publications 4380, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    13. Akio Kawasaki, 2013. "Airport privatization competition including domestic airline networks," Working Papers e064, Tokyo Center for Economic Research.
    14. Michiel Bijlsma & Andrei Dubovik, 2014. "Banks, Financial Markets and Growth in Developed Countries: a Survey of the empirical literature," CPB Discussion Paper 266, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    15. Antonio Estache & Caroline Philippe, 2012. "The Impact of Private Participation in Infrastructure in Developing Countries: Taking Stock of about 20 Years of Experience," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2012-043, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    16. Abate, Megersa & Christidis, Panayotis & Purwanto, Alloysius Joko, 2020. "Government support to airlines in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    17. Frisell, Lars & Roszbach, Kasper & spagnolo, giancarlo, 2008. "Governing the Governors: A Clinical Study of Central Banks," Working Paper Series 221, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden).
    18. Sergei Guriev & William Megginson, 2006. "Privatization: What We have Learned," Post-Print hal-03459145, HAL.
    19. Gopalakrishnan, Balagopal & Jacob, Joshy & Pandey, Ajay, 2018. "Lender Moral Hazard in State-owned Banks: Evidence from an Emerging Economy," IIMA Working Papers WP 2018-07-01, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Research and Publication Department.
    20. Zhang, Min & Liu, Yaosong & Xie, Lu & Ye, Tingting, 2017. "Does the cutoff of “red capital” raise a red flag? Political connections and stock price crash risk," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 89-109.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Sovereign wealth funds; International financial markets; Government policy and regulation; economic and political developments relating to privatization; state capitalism; and state ownership of business; and will survey the extensive recent research examining privatization and state ownership. an overview of economic and political developments relating to privatization; state capitalism; and state ownership of business; and will then survey the extensive recent research examining privatization and state ownership. The author adopts a policy of categorizing the post-2004 research into three principal areas: (1) empirical privatization studies; (2) theoretical and empirical studies examining the level; type; and valuation impact of state ownership of business enterprises; and (3) empirical research examining the impact of state ownership on financial markets and institutions; plus the private and public social welfare implications of political connections between politicians and business executives.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • G38 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Government Policy and Regulation

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:now:fntfin:0500000053. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Lucy Wiseman (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nowpublishers.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.