(2009). The End of the Free Market? Administrative Theory & Praxis: Vol. 31, No. 3, pp. 388-388.

The End of the Free Market

Non-commercial goals and financial performance of state-owned enterprises – some evidence from the electricity sector in the EU countries

Environmental regulation, governance transformation and the green development of Chinese iron and steel enterprises

State-owned enterprises and economic growth: Evidence from the post-Lehman period

Although state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have long been criticized for being inefficient, they play a vital role in realizing social welfare including the improvement of environmental quality. SOEs are controlled by governments, so the motivations and strategies of SOEs to improve corporate environmental performance are distinct from their privately-owned counterparts. In this article, we propose that a unique strategy adopted by SOEs for improving environmental performance is high responsiveness to the government's goal. Using a unique and detailed firm-level dataset, we find that SOEs perform better for the pollutant assessed by government targets while they perform similarly for the unregulated pollutant compared with their privately-owned counterparts, indicating that they are more responsive and accountable for meeting policy requirements. We further find that SOEs worsen their environmental performance after the privatization, which is consistent with the main results. With the privatization of SOEs worldwide, determining how to avoid the negative effects of privatization as well as to motivate for-profit enterprises to improve corporate environmental performance is the key to achieving a win-win. 

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Do state-owned enterprises really have better environmental performance in China? Environmental regulation and corporate environmental strategies

The paper aims to analyse state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in 11 post-socialist Central-Eastern European (CEE) countries. Based on the individual data of large non-financial companies, we estimated the real state share in the years 2014 and 2015. We consider both direct and indirect state ownership and apply an explicit classification of companies as majority and minority state-owned, which is neglected in a lot of research. The countries with the highest values of the ‘Country SOE index’ were Slovenia and Latvia, while the lowest were Lithuania and Hungary. State ownership is dominant in transportation and storage and energy supply. The lower return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE) and return on capital employed (ROCE) ratios of SOEs imply that capital in this group of companies is used less efficiently. Furthermore, they are characterised by higher wage costs. At the same time, SOEs have higher earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) margins and better ability to turn operating revenue into cash than their privately-owned counterparts.

The Scale and Financial Performance of State-Owned Enterprises in the CEE Region

Abstract This paper aims to analyse the allocation of the COVID-19 response funds from the perspective of the political alignment hypothesis. The authors focus on the allocation of the second and third rounds of the Governmental Fund for Local Investments (part of the COVID-19 Response Fund) in Poland. Using the logit and OLS models and the regression discontinuity design the authors show that mayors aligned with the central government were significantly more likely to receive the funds, as well as in higher per capita values, than mayors aligned with the opposition or unaligned with any party in parliament when the allocation was based on a discretionary decision. The results support the political alignment hypothesis and highlight the danger of partiality in the allocation of the COVID-19 response funds.

Political alignment and the allocation of the COVID-19 response funds—evidence from municipalities in Poland

The aim of the research was to indicate whether fossil fuels abundance had a negative effect on political and economic changes in the post- -socialist countries in the years 1991—2015. The research covered 28 countries of Central-Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Data were collected from the Freedom House (FH) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) databases, as well as the BP database.
The results of conducted study showed that the abundance of fossil fuels resources did not have a decisive influence on the process of market economy creation and democratisation of the post-socialist countries of Central-Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.



Piotr Matuszak

Papers

Non-commercial goals and financial performance of state-owned enterprises – some evidence from the electricity sector in the EU countries

State-owned enterprises and economic growth: Evidence from the post-Lehman period

The Scale and Financial Performance of State-Owned Enterprises in the CEE Region

Political alignment and the allocation of the COVID-19 response funds—evidence from municipalities in Poland

Fossil fuels abundance and institutional changes in the post-socialist countries