DYNAMIKA TRANSFORMACYJNEJ RECESJI I EKSPANSJI (Z PERSPEKTYWY ZMIAN STRUKTURY WŁASNOŚCIOWEJ FIRM)

Abstract

The paper is an attempt to explain the dynamics of output change in transition and its determinants. The author stresses, first o f all, the differences between the normal business cycle and the transitional recession and expansion. The most important are the much larger scale of output fall in post-communist transition and the different sets of firms (dominant set of new private firms in transition). In his opinion the factor dynamising the behaviour of economic agents is the ownership form. In transitional recession state firms dominate. For a number of reasons at the beginning of the transition the demand for their (usually obsolete and low quality) products goes down. Also, the aggregate output falls as new private firms are too small to countervail the fall in the state sector. The few privatised firms have problems of their own and their output does not increase much, either. With the passage of time the proportions change. Newly established and already expanding private firms, as well as more numerous privatised firms, increase their output so much that their increases outweigh the losses of state firms. The expansion begins. The author points out that all transition economies have gone through such correctional recession, while not all experienced expansion. He ascribes the difference to the development of the new private sector, which in the first couple of years of transition is clearly more efficient than the privatised sector (to say nothing about the inefficient state sector). The rapid expansion of the new private sector, or its quantitative and qualitative weakness, is dependent in this author’s opinion on the successful implementation of the transition programme and on civilisational differences (how the country performed before communism).