Showing papers on "Social ownership published in 2001"
TL;DR: The systemic impact of privatization through foreign direct investment (FDI) has been unique because it has been part of the transition of Central and Eastern Europe from centrally planned to market economies without historical parallel as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: By its very nature, the systemic impact of privatization through foreign direct investment (FDI) has been unique because it has been part of the transition of Central and Eastern Europe from centrally planned to market economies without historical parallel. On balance, this impact has been positive, and more substantial than was expected at the beginning of the transition process. At the early phases of systemic transformation, the majority of the observers believed that Central and Eastern European countries only needed a formal change in ownership without major qualitative upheaval, and perhaps a dose of macroeconomic stabilization. This led them to conclude that FDI would not need to play a major role in transformation, which would instead be led by a nascent domestic private sector. As a corollary, they believed that FDI needed to be confined to its greenfield type, and was to be avoided in the privatization process. However, with some exceptions most Central and Eastern European economics had been lacking in private business and experience with markets for at least half a century. In retrospect, it is easy to deduct that the rapid switch from public to private ownership would not have been possible without the active involvement of foreign private investment, given the lack of experience and capital available locally. The transition from centrally planned to market economies involved not only an increased role for private enterprise and markets but also the elimination of the inefficiencies inherent in social ownership and planning and the restructuring of the production base and its integration into the international economy. Privatization related FDI has also contributed to the elimination of such macroeconomic and structural distortions inherited from the socialist economies as high degrees of shortages and slacks, soft budget constraints, price distortions and latent inflationary pressures.
22 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine and challenge the apparent contradiction between the orthodox planning principle and decentralisation as is being adopted in contexts like Kerala, and argue that if decentralisation is to be meaningful, resources need to be devolved to lower levels of decision making, which must have the right to allocate resources based on local priorities.
Abstract: To adherents of the classical role and nature of planning in economic systems, decentralised planning would appear a contradiction in terms. The orthodox literature on planning had at its core a process of centralised investment decision-making, which had as its corollary central access to and allocation of the surpluses available in the system. On the other hand, if decentralisation is to be meaningful, resources need to be devolved to lower levels of decision making, which must have the right to allocate resources based on local priorities. The intent of this essay is to examine and challenge this apparent contradiction between the orthodox planning principle and decentralisation as is being adopted in contexts like Kerala. The search for a more humane alternative to capitalism, which even when 'successful' in terms of the growth in output in some parts of the world, is characterised by national and international inequality, unemployment, poverty and environmental degradation, is as old as the system itself. Socialism, in theory and in its actually existing form, provided an alternative with a grand design: that of replacing private property and the market mechanism, which were seen as underlying capitalist failure, with social ownership and centralised planning. The subversion of "actually existing socialism" in the erstwhile Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and its radical transformation in the direction of a more 'market-driven' system elsewhere in the world, has encouraged a critical appraisal of the functioning of the erstwhile centrally planned systems. The aim of that appraisal would be to combine the advances the centrally planned economies (CPEs) had made in overcoming the anarchy of capitalism and ensuring the provision of basic needs to all at an early stage of development, with
5 citations
01 Jan 2001
TL;DR: Slovenia was, in a certain sense, the manufacturing platform of the former Yugoslavia as discussed by the authors, which resulted in a relatively broad and sophisticated industrial structure, different to that, which would have developed in a small open economy with an export-oriented development concept.
Abstract: The enterprise sector in Slovenia entered the process of economic transition with the legacy of a specific quasi-market socialist economic system based on self-management and social ownership. Slovenia was, in a certain sense, the manufacturing platform of the former Yugoslavia. This resulted in a relatively broad and sophisticated industrial structure, different to that, which would have developed in a small open economy with an export-oriented development concept. Disintegration of the former Yugoslavia led to the loss of easy and well-protected markets. Slovenian companies were forced to turn to export markets. Accommodating to the pressures of more competitive markets has, as a rule, been achieved by short-term rationalisation measures (predominantly by reducing costs via lay-offs and an intensive process of early retirement, tolerated by the state) and only much less through long-term restructuring.
2 citations
01 Jan 2001
TL;DR: In the case of Slovenia, the question of formally or de facto entering the single currency area will not arise in the imminent future, since it will take quite some time before its house is brought into order as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Whether a transition economy such as that of Slovenia, which a few years ago left a kind of monetary integration, should prepare itself for joining the European single currency area — another monetary integration — is for the moment, as will be seen, not the right question. In the first place, the country must put its house in order, not only because it was previously a (market-planned) variety of a non-market economy, but also because it decided, under the influence of foreign experts, to abolish social ownership of business enterprises in the wrong way (Ribnikar, 1991). Since it will take quite some time before its house is brought into order, the question of formally or de iure entering the single currency area will not arise in the imminent future.