State-owned enterprises (SOEs) play an important role in Emerging Europe’s economies, notably in the energy and transport sectors. Based on a new firm-level dataset, this paper reviews the SOE landscape, assesses SOE performance across countries and vis-à -vis private firms, and evaluates recent SOE governance reform experience in 11 Emerging European countries, as well as Sweden as a benchmark. Profitability and efficiency of resource allocation of SOEs lag those of private firms in most sectors, with substantial cross-country variation. Poor SOE performance raises three main risks: large and risky contingent liabilities could stretch public finances; sizeable state ownership of banks coupled with poor governance could threaten financial stability; and negative productivity spillovers could affect the economy at large. SOE governance frameworks are partly weak and should be strengthened along three lines: fleshing out a consistent ownership policy; giving teeth to financial oversight; and making SOE boards more professional.
This Selected Issues paper examines the progress of Slovenia by focusing on four interrelated topics that are critically important to the evolution of the transition process and provides insights into the work that lies ahead. The paper concludes that the voucher-based privatization process has failed to truly transform the ownership structure of socially owned enterprises. The paper also investigates the inflation process in Slovenia through an empirical examination of some commonly used determinants of inflation in transition economies.