Private Sector Development During Transition

French edition. World Bank Technical Paper No. 298F (Les filles et lécole en Afrique subsaharienne: De lanalyse á laction). Summarizes the factors that constrain girls schooling in Sub-Saharan Africa and outlines practical ways of designing programs that will accelerate female participation in education in the region. Also available in English: (ISBN 0-8213-3373-9) Stock No. 13373.

The publication explores the role of the private sector in economic development and the challenges involved in the design of public policies which promote an appropriate balance between competition and regulation. Chapters discuss the following topics: the private sector and poverty reduction, the investment climate, public intervention to promote supply response, private participation and markets for basic services, pro-poor policy design, sustainability and reform aspects.

Many Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries, like Benin, have scaled up public investment during the last decade. Such a strategy contributed to the improvement of infrastructure, but also to a build-up of debt vulnerabilities. Looking forward, the planned fiscal consolidation will result in some restraint of public spending, and, in particular, public investment. In this context, maintaining or even raising the region’s economic growth will require an offset by the private sector. The analysis draws lessons from countries that have successfully transitioned from public investment to private investment-led growth using a global sample starting in the mid-1980s. These lessons highlight policies that have been crucial in fostering a rebound of private investment in the wake of a contraction of public investment. The analytical framework proposed by Hausman, Rodrik and Velasco (2005) is used to identify and classify such policies. Finally, the paper analyses how the identified policies could help Benin achieving a smooth transition from public to private sector-led growth.

This paper reviews a selection of studies on privatization experiences in transition countries. Empirical studies almost invariably show privatized enterprises outperform state enterprises. Moreover, the literature identifies de novo firms as being clearly the best performers, followed by outsider-dominated firms, while insider-dominated firms are the least efficient among those newly privatized. The importance of de novo firms in enlarging the private sector in transition economies is reviewed, along with the question of whether privatization efforts support or hinder de novo private sector development. Finally, the paper discusses the importance of providing a suitable market environment for successful private-sector development.

Poland is rapidly developing a reasonable legal framework to support its transition to a market economy. Yet legal practice lags behind. Precedent and expertise must be built through training and experience.

inefficient and uncompetitive enterprises especially from the over-grown industrial sector. These initial conditions meant that, in the early stages of transition, the volume of entries and exits will be, by necessity, very high reflecting the large scale changes that had to take place before these economies attain a macroeconomic structure consistent with their level of development and with the needs of a market-based economy open to internationalcompetition. One of the main elements of the reform programme in all economies in transition was the liberalisation of entry conditions. Along with the liberalisation of prices and foreign trade, appropriate measures facilitating the establishment of new enterprises were approved in the very early phase of reforms in all of these countries. The effectiveness of liberalised entry conditions, of course, depends on the presence of appropriate legal and institutional framework in which new firms will operate. The establishment of a conducive legal and institutional environment, however, takes much longer. In practice, new firms come into existence before the rules of the game are properly established. These rules develop gradually and are not always, and everywhere, consistent with the aim of liberalising the entry conditions. The conditions facing new firms, therefore, have fluctuated in some countries in accordance with changes in the political environment and in line with the strength of different lobbies and interest groups.