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The purpose of this paper is to understand the dynamics of private sector employment in China in recent years and to provide insight into the effects private sector employment has had on internal variations in growth and development. Our findings indicate a divergence in employment sources in cities and the countryside, a growing spatial divide between areas that rely on state-owned enterprises for employment, and places where the private sector is an increasingly important employer. We conclude that private enterprises are essential drivers of prosperity in urban China but are less significant for employment or growth in rural areas.

This study examined the effects of the misallocation of talent between the government and private enterprise sectors on innovation. By using the 2005 inter-census population survey and patent datab...

The survival of indigenous private enterprises is usually threatened by the demise of their founders. While previous studies on enterprise (dis)continuity have focused largely on business failure before founders’ death, little attention is paid to why indigenous private businesses do not outlive their founders in Nigeria. This study, therefore, examined the factors accounting for post-founder business discontinuity among selected indigenous private enterprises in the South-West, Nigeria. Theory of Loss and continuity in the family firm provided the framework. The research design was exploratory, using qualitative methods of data collection. Three states (Lagos, Ogun and Oyo) were purposively selected on the basis of being home to many defunct indigenous enterprises. Case studies were done on 16 purposively selected indigenous private enterprises (eight discontinued and eight surviving) whose founders had died. The qualitative data were analysed with Nvivo 8. Findings show that disharmony in the deceased founders’ family, ineffective implementation of succession plans as well as inheritance crises emerged as the most prevalent factors that accounted for postfounder enterprise discontinuity. The study recommended that indigenous enterprise founders should make efforts to foster harmonious relationships among members of their families in order to increase enterprise survival after their death.

We re-examine the relation between taxes and corporate leverage, using variation in state corporate income tax rates. In contrast with prior research, we document that corporate leverage increases following tax cuts for both privately held and publicly listed firms. We use an estimated dynamic equilibrium model to show that tax cuts result in lower default spreads and more distant default thresholds. These effects outweigh the loss of benefits from the interest tax deduction and lead to higher leverage, especially for privately held firms. Overall, debt tax shields appear to be a secondary capital structure consideration.

This article corrects and amends earlier calculations of Indonesia’s colonial surplus appearing in past issues of the Journal of Contemporary Asia. The final corrected total for 1880–1939, the period of domination by private enterprise, is now put at approximately 27 billion Netherlands guilders. The main reasons for the changes were two faulty methods of calculation used previously and the realisation of several sizeable omissions more from the balance of payments. The new methods of creating estimates of missing items are explained whilst the erroneous method of the balance of payments dealing with undistributed profits is discussed critically. The balance of payments specifies no data at all for undistributed profits although, clearly, they are large. It is also observed that almost all other discussions of the size of undistributed profits deal with the part not mentioned in the balance of payments and are unaware of the hidden element that is included. Our total is almost certainly an underes...

This paper discusses the reforms that introduced market-based economies in the three Baltic states and seeks to identify particularities defining the resulting economic system. The reforms were rapid and broadly based and involved particular measures such as currency boards, free international trade, flat taxes and funded pension systems. The result was liberal-market economic systems with more emphasis on private enterprise, high-powered incentives and small governments than in most other post-communist countries. The unique choice of reforms may be seen as paradoxical given the proximity of the Baltic states to the Nordic welfare states. The choice may partly be explained by the initial economic and structural conditions of the countries, but the democratic and political dynamics as well as the preferences and values of the public are arguably of greater importance.

Nowadays, it is obvious that the number of the employees as well as the average salary is increasing both in stated-owned and private enterprises. However, the income gap of their staff expands gradually. Meanwhile, compared with the contribution which the private enterprises’ employees have made, they haven’t benefit from the rapid economic development. This study tries to find the causes of the income lag of the employees between the states-owned and private enterprises, to focus on the process of the bargaining game between the both sides of the private enterprises, to discuss the bargaining power of workers based on the model of dynamic bargaining game paradigm, to find the main factors which influence the final equilibrium wage, and finally puts forward some countermeasures based on the paradigm of dynamic bargaining game. This study shows that the employees’ income amount in private enterprises is strongly associated with VL, Vb and. And this study is of rea σC, σL listic significance to pro...

Frank Chodorov (1887–1966) was Nock’s protege, and also a magazine writer. While Chodorov’s libertarian political philosophy resembled Nock’s in most areas, Chodorov was optimistic about the superiority of private enterprise in education. This, I argue, owes to the influence of the libertarian economist Ludwig von Mises, who stressed the importance of consumer sovereignty and suggested that economists should celebrate markets ability to satisfy consumer preferences rather than opine one what consumers should prefer. Chodorov ideally preferred no role for government in education, but compromised to support the minimal government function of giving individuals tax deductions/credits for money spent purchasing private education.

Since World War II, and especially since the1970s, cities have increasingly relied on municipal bonds as a crucial source of income. At the same time, the bond rating agencies have exerted more influence on potential investors—a development with significant consequences for the nation’s cities. The need for elected officials to measure their actions against possible rewards and punishments imposed by the bond rating agencies allowed private businesses to shape public policies in distant places impervious to the mandates given democratically elected local governments. This paper examines the challenges faced by public officials in three cities (Philadelphia, Chicago, and Detroit) because of the power wielded by bond rating agencies.

We examine the transition of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in Vietnam during the period 2002–2014 from a wage perspective by decomposing the differences in wage distributions between SOE employees and non-SOE employees. Although SOE employees received higher pay in 2002 because of differences in the characteristics and residuals, the differences in coefficients were minimal along the wage distribution during 2002–2014. The differences in characteristics decreased over time in the middle and middle-to-high wage distribution groups. University graduates were the main contributor to the difference in endowments. By 2014, the residuals difference vanished and the pay schemes between SOEs and non-SOEs converged.

This paper examines affirmative action in Malaysia and South Africa, two regimes that favor majorities. Malaysia’s highly centralized and discretionary programme is in contrasts with South Africa’s more democratized, decentralized and statutory structure. With regard to affirmative action outcomes, both countries have made quantitative gains in increasing representation of Bumiputeras in Malaysia and blacks in South Africa, in tertiary education and high-level occupations. However, there is also evidence to suggest continuing, primarily qualitative, shortfalls, in terms of graduate capability, dependence on public sector employment, and persistent difficulty in cultivating private enterprise. The results reported here emphasize the importance of implementing affirmative action effectively in education, while exercising restraint in employment and enterprise development.

A robust literature has demonstrated that de jure regulatory barriers to entry deter firm formation. This paper identifies the discretion available to government officials in tollbooth positions to establish barriers to entry as a de facto policy barrier which is an important source of uncertainty for Chinese entrepreneurs. Defining discretion as the share of provincial government revenue deriving from discretionary charges levied by government departments, I estimate the impact of discretion on the formation of Chinese domestic private enterprises. I find that a 1% decrease in discretion is associated with an additional private enterprise for every 10,000 provincial residents.

Enterprise historicity has always been a precursor to how it is run in contemporary times. While it is common knowledge that enterprises brace up to the challenges of paradigmatic shifts in business, what is commonly overlooked both in research literature and by business practitioners is the subtle influence that the ex ante firm behavior exerts on any ex post decision. Some researchers have liberally drawn from scientific literature to explain this phenomenon as that of path dependence. In this paper, an attempt is made to discuss the relevance of path dependence in enterprise behavior and supplement it with the ‘demand for returns’ argument which posits that private enterprises stand to perform better as against state-owned enterprises as a result of the stakeholders’ demand for their rightful share of value.

Verhoef describes Africa’s turn to the market since the debt-ridden stasis of the 1980, as the dawn of democracy, political accountability and private enterprise. The causal relationship between market, responsible leadership, governance and entrepreneurial achievement is highlighted in the first exposition of entrepreneurial freedom and success in Africa since independence. Verhoef integrates biographies of business birth, growth and consolidation across Sub-Saharan Africa and the Maghreb and connects experiences with privatisation to the rise of large diversified conglomerates in Africa. Innovation and leadership are core to successful business development, and Verhoef connects these characteristics to the enduring family networks of early African business development when identifying leading businesses contributing to development in different sectors of African economies. The organisational form and management structures, except in South Africa, remain either relatively flat or owner-centralised.

Micro and small enterprises (MSE) build the vast majority of businesses in Uganda. This contribution shows that their economic development is not only hampered by ‘normal’ business constraints faced by many MSEs in developing countries. The system of favouritism prevailing in Uganda’s political economy disproportionally affects the MSE sector, impacting the country’s economic development to some extent as well. This contribution introduces a new concept of political economy for MSE development based on (1) corruption/rent-seeking, (2) a possible political bias in economic policy towards larger businesses, reflected in the institutional support structure (3) the economic and lobbying power of big enterprises vs. MSEs, (4) and a potentially biased tax system. The concept is applied to the Uganda under Museveni’s rule in the period 1994-2014, giving empirical insights that show how political and economic development are intertwined and to what extent this affects MSE development.

The provision of public services involving network infrastructure must inevitably address the challenge posed by their inherent monopolies. However, much of current regulatory theory is founded on an additional paradigm in which private enterprise was expected to play a growing part in the delivery of such services. As a consequence, the theory was expanded in the 1980s to create the conditions to facilitate the entry of the private sector, reflecting the then-dominant policy framework described as ‘the Washington Consensus’. Because much of South Africa's policy framework was established while this was the dominant global policy discourse, its perspectives were embedded in local regulatory approaches. However, while private-sector involvement is desirable in some circumstances, it is not inevitably the optimal strategy to meet public policy objectives. The new consensus is that formulaic prescriptions for regulatory approaches based on ideological approaches are not helpful. The institutions and instrume...

Local governments are increasingly entering into partnerships with the private sector in the “externalization” of public service delivery. While the financial and non-financial interests of the par ...

Research conducted in the informal sweetpotato seed (vines) supply system in the Gulu region, northern Uganda (2013–2015) revealed a diverse set of actors using private enterprise in a range of selling and marketing channels. The different channels offer an efficient and effective marketing system, providing different services and conveniences for farmers at different prices. The actors include local vine multipliers, traders, dry season root farmers, transporters and town sellers. The local multipliers and dry season root farmers grow crops during the dry season in swampy areas and sell the vines in the following rainy season to the many farmers who lack access to such areas and therefore lack vines to plant. The presentation and discussion of this case study adds to an expanding argument in the literature for increased attention to support actors in informal food crop sectors who are providing sustainable production and marketing systems on a platform of beneficial and innovative private enterprise. Through their commercial operations, vine multipliers and other actors can effectively meet the demand of customers and at the right time and place. With suitable dissemination programmes installed, these actors could also offer access to new varieties otherwise unavailable to the majority of farmers.

One of the most important transitions of China from a centrally planned economy to a market-based economy was the emergence of entrepreneurship in two different forms of private enterprise, viz. getihu and siyingqiye. Using a unique database for 31 Chinese regions over the period 1997-2009, we investigate the economic antecedents of regional rates of getihu and siyingqiye, and find that the antecedents of these rates are substantially different. We also investigate the mutual interactions between getihu and siyingqiye at the regional level. Our analysis suggests that both types of entrepreneurship play important but distinct roles in stimulating China's economic development.

There are compelling reasons to believe there is an unhealthy growth imperative inherent in private enterprise market systems that threatens the environment. Unfortunately, many who criticize a dysfunctional growth imperative fail to make a compelling case. This article argues that too often ecological and Marxist economists fail to answer crucial parts of skeptics’ arguments and instead assume their conclusions, and offers an alternative defense of the unhealthy growth imperative hypothesis based on perverse incentives, institutional biases, and endogenous preference formation.JEL codes: 044, 030, 013

We study the effects of airport ownership (private vs. government) on welfare in the presence of airport complementarity, where each airport is located in a different country. Considering Cournot competition in the airline market, the unique Nash equilibrium is such that the two countries privatize their airports, even though both countries are better off, from a welfare perspective, with public (government-owned) airports. Considering a differentiated Bertrand competition in the airline market, the same result prevails if the cross price elasticities are sufficiently high, otherwise the symmetric government-ownership of airports may also be a Nash equilibrium.

Growing research and policy interest focuses on the misallocation of output and factors of production in developing economies. This paper considers the possible misallocation of financial loans. Using plant-level data on the organized and unorganized sectors, the paper describes the temporal, geographic, and industry distributions of financial loans. The focus of the analysis is the hypothesis that land misallocation might be an important determinant of financial misallocation (for example, because of the role of land as collateral against loans). Using district-industry variations, the analysis finds evidence to support this hypothesis, although it does not find a total reduction in the intensity of financial loans or those being given to new entrants. The analysis also considers differences by gender of business owners and workers in firms. Although potential early gaps for businesses with substantial female employment have disappeared in the organized sector, a sizeable and persistent gap remains in the unorganized sector.

This study continues the issue of Russian economic reform in the study by Quast and Locatelli (1997) and extends the same reform in many aspects. In this paper, an in-depth study is also made in the reform strategies and the business performance of Gazprom, Russia's natural gas company, as Russia tried to curtail its domestic political and economic problems by means of the organisational reform (privatisation) of Gazprom starting in 1993. This study discovered that Gazprom had truly been a private corporation before 2005; however, it became practically a state-run business after 2005. We further disclose that Gazprom's business performance after the reform did not come from the corporate organisational reform but rather resulted from the increase of natural gas prices and was irrelevant to the production capacity. Data in many aspects, such as the adoption of privatisation, liquefied natural gas, sole proprietorship, merger and the strategy of market diversification, are used in this study to sustain Gazprom's business performance after the reform. However, it is believed that the key factor of these changes was whether Russia's ruling party could really transform a state-run business into a private enterprise, as otherwise, any economic reform would be a transient happening for the Russian economy.

Building on prior literature, this paper provides an empirical analysis of the impact of the Chinese institutional environment on its globalization patterns. A framework is presented through which distortive government policies act upon existing country and firm‐specific advantages, giving rise to institutional‐specific (dis)advantages. The applicability of this framework is then tested empirically through an unrestricted regression model that controls for the standard explanatory factors of inter‐country foreign direct investment (FDI) in comparing state and private sector outbound foreign direct investment (OFDI) determinants. This study concludes that institutional discrimination creates relative advantages for state‐owned firms at a cost to private enterprise, leading to divergences in IB strategies.

The objective of the conference on “Leadership, Altruism, and Social Organization” was to bring researchers together who were interested in exploring the functioning of the nonprofit sector. The conference and this special issue focus on three themes. First, what causes social and volunteer-based organizations to successfully compete against a private enterprise? Second, why do individuals or organizations take the lead in providing or securing provision of public goods? Third, what are the consequences of having altruistically motivated agents, and how can such motives be sustained?

This article presents a binary economic critique of Milton Friedman's thesis that a competitive, free market, private enterprise, capitalist system is an essential condition for freedom. After iden...

In developing countries, firms encounter distinct challenges that place them in situations where they take on functions typically handled by the public sector. These functions range from the provision of health care and education for local communities to the development of political capacity and public policy. Drawing on 30 case studies of companies operating in developing regions of the world, this article presents a typology of four strategies that describe the different ways in which firms can engage in public responsibilities. For each strategy, it outlines the key challenges faced by firms along with suggestions for overcoming them. The burdens firms bear in providing services in response to public policy failures are substantial. Only by effectively developing an appropriate strategic orientation can programs be created that add value both to businesses and to the communities in which they operate.

This paper investigates the Italian debate on municipalization between the 1880s and the 1920s and is divided into two parts. The first deals with the emergence of the municipalization in the late nineteenth century as a component in the birth of the Social State. The second part concerns the analytical tools elaborated by some leading Italian economists in the first three decades of the twentieth century, when municipalization was the expression of an entire lifecycle, with an early expanding stage (until World War I) and a later stage (under Fascism) of prevalent stagnation.

Recent concessions in France and in the USA have resulted in a dramatic difference in the valuation placed on the toll roads; the price paid by the investors in France was 12 times current cash flow whereas investors paid 60 times current cash flow for US toll roads. In this paper, we explore two questions: what accounts for the difference in these multiples? and what are the implications with respect to the public interest? Our analysis illustrates how structural and procedural decisions made by the public owner affect the concession price. Further, the terms of the concession have direct consequences that are enjoyed or borne by the various stakeholders of the toll road.

The objectives of this study are to (a) demonstrate the importance and motivation for large private companies taking action against climate change and (b) develop a backcasting-oriented framework for comprehensive and manageable corporate travel policies. The backcasting framework consists of four parts: (1) target description at a conceptual level; (2) mapping of the current status of the company regarding staff travel patterns and preferences, individual and collective emissions, and costs against the targets described; (3) a policy-oriented transformation of the backcasting target; and (4) alternative sets of company policies and strategies that would allow targets to be achieved. A detailed cost-benefit analysis is supplemented by statistical and econometric models that test employee acceptance of the different policy alternatives.

Based on the case of Taizhou City in Zhejiang Province, the present paper investigates the mechanism of the interaction between the local government and private enterprise in the process of regional economic development. We identify the “Taizhou Model” as a model of institutional innovation and the development of private economy, which is private sector-induced and local government-promoted Indeed, the impact of such mechanisms has had a significant influence on the reforms and development of China s economic system.

We propose a new cause for the pervasive syndromes of soft budget constraint (SBC) in socialist and transition economies, that is, the policy burdens on enterprises result in the SBC problems. The policy burdens induce low effort input of firm manager and thus the low efficiency of production. And with the policy burdens, increasing market competition will make the SBC syndromes arise more likely. Privatization will not necessarily harden the budget constraint of the enterprise. On the contrary, when a SOE still bears the policy burdens, privatization will only aggravate the SBC problems. Because in this case, a private enterprise will demand more ex post subsidies from the government, than a SOE under the same condition. Our results help to explain many stylized facts in transition and socialist economies. Journal of Comparative Economics 36 (1) (2008) 90–102.

Demand for infrastructure in the United States continues to grow dramatically while governments at all levels struggle to balance their budgets. As a result, state and local governments are looking more to nontraditional sources of financing for their capital and operating needs. Public Private Partnerships (PPP) are financing strategies that are widely used around the world but are still relatively new in the United States. Under these agreements, state and local governments maintain ownership and control of the assets but receive financial compensation to contract with a private operator who provides operating, maintenance, and/or construction expertise for large-scale infrastructure projects.

This interdisciplinary, mixed-method research using the explanatory sequential design was undertaken to study one sector of the elderly community’s living condition in Mandaluyong City to determine the viability of putting up a privately-funded residential and care facility for them. Sixty-nine senior citizens were surveyed by a group of 4th year business students in 2013 for their feasibility study about an economic housing for the elderly, using a government-published questionnaire. Raw data from these instruments were, by mutual agreement used for this study. Analysis showed that the demographics from the instruments matched with the local government statistics. It was also found out that some respondents who have some source of modest income but feel neglected and lonely signified desire to live in a more quiet, modest but decent living facility away from their noisy and chaotic home environment. Literature search also showed numerous laws, bills, plans, and other government initiatives that provide assistance for the welfare of the elderly. These could be used in addressing or providing ideas to solve the problem at hand. A privately-funded facility proposed under the undergraduate feasibility study was therefore found economically viable after review in the areas of marketing, technical and financial aspects and that government interference was proposed to be solicited. Initially, the findings of this study was formally presented before the officials of Barangay Hulo, Mandaluyong City last May 7, 2015 as an extension project for the concerned elderly of the community. More than 50 senior citizens attended the presentation. Feedback from stakeholders was promising.

The Nordic countries’ media systems are exemplary of the democratic corporatist model, and newspapers have occupied a very prominent position in the political public sphere supported by wide circulation and a political will to subsidize the press and still keep an arm’s length distance. During past decades, these features have come under pressure due to – among other things – the spread of digital media. In this article, we explore two current structural economic challenges to legacy newspaper organizations in Denmark. The first challenge regards the implementation of subscription on news websites since 2013. The second challenge concerns the revision of the Danish press subsidy law in 2013–2014. The introduction of a ‘platform neutral’ subsidy law could be interpreted as a first step toward rethinking the entire press subsidies system. Taken together, these developments pose serious challenges to the printed press: on the one hand, no viable business model seems ready to replace the old one; on the other hand, a reorientation of the regulatory system, which subsidizes the press, seems under way. Despite the global nature of ongoing transformation (digitalization and commercialization), national particularities continue to influence developments and reflect continued support for the democratic corporatist model.

Business people, business associations and individual firms have been enlisted in various ways by New Labour as part of their strategy to identify and resolve a number of problems within the British welfare state. Business has been important to New Labour’s welfare strategies in at least three ways. First, New Labour has endeavoured to gear social policy more towards the needs of the profit making sector in the hope that this would increase competitiveness and help it to expand welfare expenditure in future. Second, by increasing the inputs of business people and firms into social policy, the government hoped to rescue services from their inefficient public sector strait-jackets. Third, the government has looked to private firms as important new sources of financing for welfare infrastructure. However, this embedding of business culture, business people and private enterprise into social policy has produced few real benefits to services, their employees or their users. This paper examines and evaluates New Labour’s strategy of embedding business into social policy in order to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of welfare services.

Since 1883, when the nation's first electric power company, Tokyo Electric Lighting Co., was founded, Japan's electric power industry has developed largely through private enterprise. The exception was the period 1939-1951, spanning World War II and the Allied Occupation, when it was under state control. This path of development contrasts sharply with that of another electricity-related enterprise, the telecommunications industry. The Ministry of Communications also controlled telecommunications during and just after the war, but unlike the electric industry, telecommunications had no history as a private enterprise at any time from its start in 1869 until it was privatized in 1985. Until that year, the government ran it either directly or indirectly. This article reviews the history and development of Japan's electric power industry and analyzes the influential role of Matsunaga Yasuzaemon (1875-1971) in that process. While identifying the factors that lay behind Matsunaga's enormous contributions to the industry, it explains the reasons that the electric power industry, in contrast with telecommunications, has been run predominantly as a private enterprise.

The market, not the government, is that last best hope for actual and future potential victims of hurricanes. State subsidies have perverted locational settlement decision-making. They have acted in such a manner as to encourage people to build in more dangerous areas than they otherwise would have. By the government undertaking part of the costs of rebuilding in the aftermath of storms, it has encouraged irrational settlement patterns, which have led, in turn, to needless loss of life and wealth.

This chapter considers developments and changes in port policy and regulation occurring in the United Kingdom over the last few decades. This provides relevant contextual background relating to the issues and arguments surrounding the sale of former state-owned ports in the UK, the different methods of disposal employed, the associated liberalisation of dockworking and the legislative framework. It is argued that there were two distinct phases of port privatisation in the UK, with phase I involving the sale of state-owned ports and railway ports in the early 1980s, and phase II the disposal of major trust ports. However, it remains that the method and approach used to privatise ports in the UK differs markedly from the privatisation process for ports in most other countries, very few actually selling off port land. Port privatisation in the UK was never about creating new and improved port infrastructure and facilities to benefit the economy, which was the aim in other countries; it was simply a mechanism used to remove port assets from public ownership. This raises issues related to the aims and objectives of seaports and the role of government in this regard. The wider purpose of seaports in facilitating trade and generating economic and social benefits still tends to be stressed by public-owned (but private operated) ports in most other countries, whereas the narrower profit-making goal of private enterprise is paramount in the UK.

Přispěvek je věnovan potlacovani soukromeho podnikani v Ceskoslovensku v 50. a 60. letech 20. stoleti. Ceskoslovensko proslo ze zemi patřicich po druhe světove valce do sovětskemu bloku ve vztahu k soukromemu podnikani největsi proměnou: Během několika malo let po zacleněni do něj legalni soukrome podnikani v CSR teměř zcela vymizelo. Soukrome podnikani bylo potlacovano nejprve přimo - v podstatě zakazovanim, posleze nepřimo - pomoci zakonů silně je znevýhodňujicim v porovnani se statnim podnikanim ci statem přimo řizeným podnikanim. Jakekoliv pozdějsi snahy o znovuobnoveni soukromeho podnikani byly nasledně vinou přetrvavajicich nazorů vedeni komunisticke strany a statu obtižně prosazovany. Jeho castecna obnova se prosazovala proto jen poněkud pokoutně a předevsim za velmi omezujicich podminek.

Under a voluntary agreement with the Government, the Swiss private sector proposes to lauch an innovative Climate Penny Fund. Oil importers agree to contribute CHF 0.01–0.02 for each liter of gasoline and diesel sold. The measure will generate at least CHF 70 million annually to finance climate protection projects domestically and abroad, enabling Switzerland to eliminate the anticipated transport sector compliance gap and to fulfill its greenhouse gas emission reduction obligations. At reasonable cost, the Climate Penny buys time to implement transport sector policies, develop low-emission technologies/infrastructure and facilitate behavioral changes, while still delivering real, measurable and long-term climate mitigation results.

Since the mid-1980s, aid agencies have endorsed the need to support the development of private enterprise in low-income countries as an instrument for overall economic development and poverty reduction. Facilitated collaboration between firms in industrialised and developing countries has become one of the most popular forms of assistance in this endeavour. Although such collaborations vary in design, they all involve third-party organisations that identify partners and sponsor the first steps in the establishment of a business platform for the cooperation. This paper discusses the mechanisms involved in such facilitation and assesses the effectiveness of the catalyst institutions in nurturing collaboration between companies in industrialised and developing countries. The discussion is illustrated with case studies drawn from Ghana.

This paper explores the American bankruptcy system -- especially the Chapter 11 code -- which since 1978 has allowed insolvent companies the opportunity to restructure and reorganise with the benefit of court protection from creditors. Particular attention is focused on asbestos companies, such as Johns--Manville, which have been among the most consistent and controversial filers for bankruptcy under Chapter 11. The history of asbestos and Chapter 11 is explored, against the backdrop of the burgeoning asbestos “crisis”, caused by increasing mortality and litigation. Some of the business and ethical issues involved are highlighted by examining in detail a recent bankruptcy (Federal Mogul/T&N in 2001) that has implications in both Britain and America. Chapter 11 bankruptcy is evaluated, particularly in the light of the trend towards similar mechanisms of insolvency in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world. It is concluded that, certainly as regards the experience with asbestos, Chapter 11 offers an inefficient and inequitable method of rehabilitating or rescuing failing businesses.

This paper documents and articulates Murray N. Rothbard’s contribution to our understanding of the theory and practice of socialism. We summarize his theoretical contributions and then turn to his explanation of the operation of socialism in the Soviet Union. Moreover, we make and support the conjecture that Rothbard, writing in the 1950s and 60s, anticipated all the major subsequent developments in the economic analysis regarding the problems of the Soviet economy and all the major works in comparative political economy for real-existing socialism in the Soviet Union. [T]he extent of socialism in the present-day world is at the same time underestimatated in countries such as the United States and overestimated in Soviet Russia. It is underestimated because the expansion of government lending to private enterprise in the United States has been generally neglected, and we have seen that the lender, regardless of his legal status, is also an entrepreneur and part owner. The extent of socialism is overestimated because most writers ignore the fact that Russia, socialist as

China's economy has undergone a rapid transformation since liberalization was first introduced in 1979. Not only has there been rapid economic growth, but ownership sources have changed fundamentally, with a relative decline of the state-owned sector (SOE), a large foreign-owned sector (FIE), private enterprise and hybrid public/private forms. Accompanying these profound changes, there has been a marked shift in people management processes from centrally planned personnel administration to new forms. This article reviews the extent of those changes through a review of eight studies of HRM in China by the authors and their project colleagues. It concludes that there are widespread variations in the pace of change, between ownership forms in particular, but also between localities. Specifically, SOEs have been slower to implement reform than FIEs, largely due to historical legacies, organizational inertia and continued government interference.

Conventional analyses of housing policy in most European countries treat the 1940s as a decade when private enterprise was eclipsed by social housing programmes. As a result, private enterprise is also eclipsed in most accounts of housing and housing policy in the early post-war period. This paper draws on the British experience to show that if the policy narrative is traced from wartime plans rather than from post-war action, and if the question of who actually built post-war social housing is raised, then a different picture emerges. From the middle of 1942 British civil servants and ministers were engaged in detailed planning for post-war housing, in both the short and long term. Private enterprise was assumed to have a major role to play in the long term, and a supporting role in the transitional period. In practice the post-war Labour Government relied on local authorities as housing developers, who themselves relied on private contractors to build the houses. The eclipse of private enterprise was, t...

Private enterprise has been the driving force behind the growth of the South African economy ever since sustained growth began in the early nineteenth century. This was still the case in the 1990s although there was increasing state interference and threats to the security of property rights were growing. These unfavourable developments restricted the freedom of market forces to generate adequate economic growth at a time when the population was increasing rapidly and gold production was falling.

As the most populous country in the world with a heavy reliance on public transit, China's public transit privatization has a global significance. China's post-Mao economic reform and establishment of market-oriented economy have stimulated its public transit privatization at a very fast pace. The largest Chinese cities have been spearheading the implementation of different privatization measures, such as granting franchises, company merger, company reorganization, public/private partnership, responsibility systems, and many others. All these privatization efforts have yielded preliminary successful results, even though some obstacles are encountered. In the future, new privatization-related laws are expected to be enacted, government functions and business functions would be further separated, privatizing other public transit services besides operation would take place, and some negative impacts associated with privatization would be mitigated.

Karl Polanyi and Max Weber held radically different views of liberal capitalism, but they also came to differ in significant respects with their brothers Michael Polanyi and Alfred Weber. The first section provides an overview of some critical moments in the history of liberal capitalism as perceived by some historical witnesses. The second treats the views of the Weber brothers on the world economy before 1914. The third deals with Max Weber's overlooked treatment of G. F. Knapp's once famous state theory of money. The fourth (re)turns to the circle of cosmopolitan Austro-Hungarian intellectuals who passionately debated the future of liberal capitalism and almost all of whom became political refugees.