scholarly journals State or Private Ownership? A Survey of Empirical Studies

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 120-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michaela Tichá

State or Private Ownership? A Survey of Empirical Studies This paper focuses on property rights and performance of enterprises. The objective of this paper is to summarize existing knowledge from empirical studies dealing with the question of whether private property and privatization of enterprises encourage firms to increase their performance measured as growth of profitability, labor productivity, investments, costs effectiveness, etc. On the basis of empirical studies, it is also determined what the influence of institutional frameworks of property rights and privatization is on the firm performance. The first part of the paper reviews results of studies on the non-transition economies privatized by 1990. The second one evaluates the impact of private ownership on performance of enterprises from transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe, and the Former Soviet Union. The results of the studies suggest that private ownership is an important but not sufficient determinant of firm prosperity, subsequently resulting in overall rise of wealth of nations. The positive impact of private ownership on economic performance can occur only in an appropriate institutional environment with relevant legal standards (righteous and enforceable contracts, the protection of shareholders and creditors, adequate banking system, functioning bankruptcy courts, capital market supervision, etc.).

Author(s):  
Ekaterina Pravilova

“Property rights” and “Russia” do not usually belong in the same sentence. Rather, our general image of the nation is of insecurity of private ownership and defenselessness in the face of the state. Many scholars have attributed Russia's long-term development problems to a failure to advance property rights for the modern age and blamed Russian intellectuals for their indifference to the issues of ownership. This book refutes this widely shared conventional wisdom and analyzes the emergence of Russian property regimes from the time of Catherine the Great through World War I and the revolutions of 1917. Most importantly, the book shows the emergence of the new practices of owning “public things” in imperial Russia and the attempts of Russian intellectuals to reconcile the security of property with the ideals of the common good. The book analyzes how the belief that certain objects—rivers, forests, minerals, historical monuments, icons, and Russian literary classics—should accede to some kind of public status developed in Russia in the mid-nineteenth century. Professional experts and liberal politicians advocated for a property reform that aimed at exempting public things from private ownership, while the tsars and the imperial government employed the rhetoric of protecting the sanctity of private property and resisted attempts at its limitation. Exploring the Russian ways of thinking about property, the book looks at problems of state reform and the formation of civil society, which, as the book argues, should be rethought as a process of constructing “the public” through the reform of property rights.


2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-20
Author(s):  
Velibor Milošević

Abstract Since reserve requirement is the only monetary policy instrument used in Montenegro, it has been subject to frequent amendments since the global crisis outbreak. The analysis of the monetary demand model showed that there is an active transmission mechanism of change in the reserve requirement rate on the deposits trend reflects on lending activity. Also, there is a significant impact of FDIs on deposits trending in the banking system, as well as the positive impact of turnover on stock exchange on the deposits and loans trend. Finally, it was found that the financial crisis has caused negative trends in loans and deposits. On the other hand, the impact of changes in the reserve requirement on the economic activity in Montenegro could not be determined. This is primarily due to the fact that the transmission mechanism of the effect of reserve requirement on economic activity is too long to be able to estimate the model that does not allow the dynamics of the independent variables. The second reason is that industrial output index is only an indirect indicator of the economic activity.


Author(s):  
Sophy K. Joseph

The Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmer’s Rights Act, 2001, promises to balance the intellectual property rights of plant breeders and farmers under one umbrella legislation. However, there remain several grey areas and the rights of farmers, in reality, are still tenuous. Though the rights framework was foregrounded on an understanding between non-governmental organizations and industry, there is lack of clarity at both conceptual and procedural levels. In this context, Sophy K. Joseph analyses the impact of legal policy reforms during the ongoing Second Green Revolution on farmers’ customary rights and livelihood. The author discusses how the extension of private property rights to plant varieties, seeds, and other agrarian resources changed the demographic composition of the rural space, with increased migration of cultivators to the cities. The book argues that the transition from state interventionism (during the First Green Revolution), to state abstention (in the Second Green Revolution) has dramatically influenced India’s conventional agrarian practices and traditions. This work maps the evolutionary process of neoliberal economic and legal policies and its interference with primary concerns such as food security, food sovereignty, and agrarian self-reliance of the country.


2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 293-311
Author(s):  
Luc Lapointe

The practice of evidence-informed policy-making (EIPM) consists of systematically searching, analyzing, synthesizing and disseminating the best available research evidence to inform decision-makers about policy problems, policy tools, implementation options, and/or policy evaluation results. Identifying the best available scientific evidence is not a simple task. The vast majority of research evidence contains risks of bias that hinder the reliability of their conclusions. In order to select the soundest available research evidence, policy analysts need to know how to critically appraise research evidence and identify different risks of bias. Formal theories on expertise acquisition in public bureaucracies suggest that these skills and knowledge should be acquired within academia rather than within governmental agencies. We thus created a 45-hour course in EIPM, POL-7061, that was first offered in 2012 to students enrolled in the Master’s Program in Public Affairs at Université Laval (Québec, Canada). The course mainly teaches techniques for searching and appraising different types of empirical studies. In 2013, we conducted a before-and-after study to assess the impact of the course on the methodological knowledge of the students. We repeated the exercise on two consecutive cohorts in 2014 and 2015. Mean percent of pre-post improvement on the knowledge test was 37% for the 2013 cohort, 51% for the 2014 cohort and 31% for the cohort of 2015. Teaching techniques in EIPM to Master’s students in public affairs is thus feasible and can have a positive impact on their basic methodological knowledge.


2005 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
AMOS WITZTUM

This paper provides further evidence to the argument that Smith' theory of justice did not follow the natural justice school and that subsequently the ethical position on acquiring private property is not independent of the effects which such acquisition may have on the property-less individuals. I will show that the justification for private ownership is based on “reasonable expectations” which owners of assets have with regard to the fruits of the asset. The expectation to subsist through the use of one's natural assets is equally reasonable. This is not to say that Smith believed that society should equally distribute income. But it does mean that the acquisition of private property must not interfere with the rights of individuals to subsist. Consequently, distribution is clearly an important part of Smith's conception of justice.


2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Quinn ◽  
Linda Clare ◽  
Robert T Woods

ABSTRACTBackground: The majority of people in the early and middle stages of dementia are cared for at home by non-paid caregivers, the majority of whom will be family members. Two factors which could have an impact on the quality of care provided to the care-recipient are the caregiver's motivations for providing care and the meaning s/he finds in caregiving. The aim of this review is to explore the potential impact of both meaning and motivation on the wellbeing of caregivers of people with dementia. The review also explores individual differences in motivations to provide care.Methods: This was a systematic review of peer-reviewed empirical studies exploring motivations and meanings in informal caregivers of people with dementia. Four studies were identified which examined the caregiver's motivations to provide care. Six studies were identified which examined the meaning that caregivers found in dementia caregiving.Results: Caregivers' wellbeing could be influenced by the nature of their motivations to care. In addition, cultural norms and caregivers’ kin-relationship to the care-recipient impacted on motivations to provide care. Finding meaning had a positive impact on caregiver wellbeing.Conclusions: The limited evidence currently available indicates that both the caregiver's motivations to provide care and the meaning s/he finds in caregiving can have implications for the caregiver's wellbeing. More research is needed to explore the role of motivations and meaning in dementia caregiving.


2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-30
Author(s):  
Mariusz Próchniak

Abstract This study aims at assessing to what extent institutional environment is responsible for worldwide differences in economic growth and economic development. To answer this question, we use an innovative approach based on a new concept of the institutions-augmented Solow model which is then estimated empirically using regression equations. The analysis covers 180 countries during the 1993-2012 period. The empirical analysis confirms a large positive impact of the quality of institutional environment on the level of economic development. The positive link has been evidenced for all five institutional indicators: two indices of economic freedom (Heritage Foundation and Fraser Institute), the governance indicator (World Bank), the democracy index (Freedom House), and the EBRD transition indicator for post-socialist countries. Differences in physical capital, human capital, and institutional environment explain about 70-75% of the worldwide differences in economic development. The institutions-augmented Solow model, however, performs slightly poorer in explaining differences in the rates of economic growth: only one institutional variable (index of economic freedom) has a statistically significant impact on economic growth. In terms of originality, this paper extends the theoretical analysis of the Solow model by including institutions, on the one hand, and shows a comprehensive empirical analysis of the impact of various institutional indicators on both the level of development and the pace of economic growth, on the other. The results bring important policy implications.


SURG Journal ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 45-54
Author(s):  
Daniel Bayley

In this report the property right structures surrounding tropical forest management are analyzed with a specific case study presented on tropical forests in Honduras. In order to adequately understand the set of property rights in place surrounding tropical forests, the applicable sets of property rights are laid out and explained (private, common, state, and open access). It is argued that the current property rights regimes in place surrounding tropical forests are inadequate and are the issue leading to high levels of deforestation. Conflicts and controversies surrounding the issue are presented for a counterargument and separate view of the issue. It was found that the current property rights regime in Honduras is inadequate for effective resource management as it lacks enforceability along with structure and is the prominent issue surrounding tropical deforestation. Private property rights were the most effective form of property rights found for maintaining natural resources, and it is therefore recommended that private ownership be instilled upon tropical forests to reduce the rate of deforestation. Free Market Environmentalism (FME) is offered as a solution to the current methodology for the management of tropical forests, as it advocates for private ownership and an enforceable set of rights. Therefore, it is recommended that a private property rights regime following the FME methodology replace existing state property rights in order to stem the tide of tropical deforestation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-169
Author(s):  
Mikołaj Tarkowski

The article illustrates that property rights, including in particular property and the relationship between property rights and the category of freedom in the nineteenth-century Russian Empire, was one of the most important areas of scientific activity of Richard Pipes. For centuries, both the institution of freedom and property were highly politicised. Based on Richard Pipes’ findings, it can be concluded that the relationship between ownership and freedom manifested itself in the feature of relativity or ambivalence, depending on the time and individual parts of the Russian Empire. In the 19th century, the former mainly influenced the development of the monetary economy, while the latter strengthened the idea of samoderzhavyie in the political system. Richard Pipes noticed the sources of the antinomy between the idea of freedom and property in nineteenth-century Russia in the dynamically developing economic life and the “stillness” of the autocratic political power system. Following this concept, the article presents the doubts appearing among the St Petersburg ruling elite as well as provincial officials related to establishing the personal freedom of peasants in Russia, which finally took place in 1861. The system of tsarist autocracy in Russia, which was developing throughout history, noticed significant links between property and freedom. A good example of this process was the confiscation of land property. In this regard, the article mentions political premises, the impact of the phenomenon of “paradox and tragedy,ˮ as well as the socio-economic calculations carried out in the field of confiscating private property in the western governorates of the Russian Empire, after the January Uprising of 1863.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-122
Author(s):  
Alvina Sabah Idrees ◽  
Saima Sarwar

Schumpeterian fundamentalism supports the argument that innovation is a dynamic process and novelties are initiated through economic agents namely the entrepreneurs; vis-à-vis a strong institutional environment is required to facilitate the innovation process. Therefore, the present study undertakes the macro-level empirical analysis on determining the impact of entrepreneurial behavior, property rights and state effectiveness on country’s innovation. The data is of panel nature consisting of 55 countries and a time period from 2010 to 2016. The empirical analysis is done using system GMM (Generalized Method of Moments) estimation technique. The study shows that the fear of failure rate and total early stage entrepreneurs reduces innovation in a country whereas there is a significant positive relationship between established business entrepreneurs and innovation. However, perceived opportunities have an insignificant impact. This means that it is not inevitable that opportunities necessary trigger innovation. In addition, the study shows that property rights play an integral role in developing institutional trust which boosts entrepreneurialism to undertake innovative venture. On the other hand, state effectiveness is negatively related to innovation i.e. institutional trust is brought down in fragile countries which retard country’s innovation.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document