Upaństwowienie i wzrastająca interwencja państwa zagrożeniem dla instytucji rynkowych
Nationalization and growing state intervention as a threat to market institutions

Summary/Abstract: The main goal of this study is to explain the unexpected changes in the transition process of some Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries starting in the second half of the 2000s. Special attention is paid to changes in and the attitudes of governments toward state ownership. Though statist approaches gained a lot of momentum in economic policy of various states during and after the 2008/9 crisis, this did not mean a fundamental reorientation expressed in changes in such main economic conditions like ownership patterns. Nevertheless, governments in some CEE countries seem to flirt with such ideas too in the general framework of increasing state economic intervention. The privatization process was stopped and in a number of cases re-nationalization of formerly privatized assets occurred. Governments strengthened their influence in the governance structure in mixed ownership companies. The main body of the present paper provides a better understanding of this change in state property policies. We also drive the attention to the risks of a reversal of the privatization logic. An increasing role of the state as proprietor may strengthen today similar negative political and economic consequences and risks against which the privatization agenda of the 1990s was suggested. It can reduce competition, give way to political and personal rent seeking and weaken the functions of market economy institutions.

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