Privatization in Context: an Introduction

Abstract

Privatization is a major building block of transformation. At the same time, there are no precedents in Western countries for a privatization programme of the size and scope currently under way in Central and Eastern Europe. These peculiarities of privatization in Central and Eastern European countries and its long-term character have sparked and sustained the continuing interest of economists and other social scientists in the issue. Moreover the hitherto accumulated empirical evidence provides an unequalled opportunity to address issues, pertaining for instance to corporate governance and to the relationship between privatization and the emergence of markets, which not only play a central role in transformation countries but which are also relevant in established market economies, highlighting as they do questions which are of paramount importance for the understanding of market economies themselves.