engleski

Privatisation of Public Services Sector in Croatia and SEE: Assessment of Major Gains and Pains

In the last twenty years, many mature western market economies as well as post-socialist countries have pursued privatisation of the enterprises in the utilities & public service sectors (telecommunications, electricity, oil and gas industry, water supply, railways etc) that were traditionally in the state ownership and whose goods and services were generally provided by the state for many decades. The countries of South East Europe (SEE), including Croatia have also followed that path but with considerable time-lag. In these sectors which are often characterised by monopolistic market structure, or quasi-monopolies at best, the state regulation prior to privatization, proved to be crucial in order to protect consumers and prevent market abuse by the new private owners. Introduction of competitive market structures through regulation was necessary even with oligopolistic or limited competitive market structures. More reliance on private and privatized enterprises in provision of goods and services in the utilities and public service sectors have brought different beneficial effects and some economic and social gains (improving efficiency, upgrade technology and innovation as well as quality of services), however accompanied at the same time with some costs and social repercussions (laying-off redundant employees ; increase of prices for some under-priced and subsidized services etc). The cost-benefit balance sheet nevertheless seems uneven and the costs and benefits differ for different categories of beneficiaries (consumers, employees, state sector, private owners, shareholders and stakeholders, etc, ).The research examines, based on two case studies of privatized public enterprises in Croatia (INA oil and gas Industry and Croatian Telecom), if and to what extent their post-privatization business performance has fulfilled the expectations of improved delivery of services, better corporate governance and cost efficiency of these enterprises. The analysis also deals with the effects of the privatisation process on the prices as well as the transparency and accountability of their business performance.

Privatisation; Public Utilities; SEE; EU; Croatia; INA; HT

Projekt je dobiven na natječaju za jugoistočnu Europu koji je raspisao London School of Economics u studenom 2009. Studiju je uz LSE sufinancirala Latsis Public Benefit Foundation.