Studies of Comparative Economic Systems: Past, Present, and Future-with Special Reference to SOE's Privatization

Abstract

Studies of comparative economic systems in the post-war period reflected the cold war from an ideological viewpoint; however, as the socialist block collapsed at the end of the 1980s, such studies changed from studies of comparative economic systems to those of comparative economic institutions. This paper examines the issue of the privatization of state-owned enterprises as one of the foci on such comparative institutions, reviews the main results of empirical analyses of privatization, and then discusses several questions which remain to be studied with regard to privatization and its effects.