Infrastructure State-Owned Enterprises : A Tale of Inefficiency and Fiscal Dependence
This paper examines the performance of infrastructure companies owned by the state, using the newly created World Bank Database of Infrastructure State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs). The data cover 19 countries and 135 SOEs between 2000 and 2018. The an...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Washington, DC: World Bank
2022
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/488131647357423308/Infrastructure-State-Owned-Enterprises-A-Tale-of-Inefficiency-and-Fiscal-Dependence http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37157 |
| Summary: | This paper examines the performance
of infrastructure companies owned by the state, using the
newly created World Bank Database of Infrastructure
State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs). The data cover 19 countries
and 135 SOEs between 2000 and 2018. The analysis reveals
that infrastructure SOEs are large and have weak financial
performance that generates significant fiscal risk. The
paper introduces new measures of financial performance net
of fiscal transfers and examines previously uncovered
patterns of subsidies by sector. It examines the effect of
state ownership by comparing the firms in the database with
hundreds of comparable private firms, using coarsened exact
matching. The findings show that relative to comparable
private firms, infrastructure SOEs are less efficient,
represent a larger share of gross domestic product, have
larger liabilities as a share of gross domestic product and
larger employment costs as a share of revenues, and yield
lower returns on assets. |
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