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IZA DP No. 3958 Helping Hand or Grabbing Hand? State Bureaucracy and Privatization Effectiveness J. David Brown John S. Earle Scott Gehlbach DISCUSSION PAPER SERIES Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit Institute for the Study of Labor January 2009

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Page 1: Helping Hand or Grabbing Hand? State Bureaucracy and …ftp.iza.org/dp3958.pdf · 2009-01-30 · Helping Hand or Grabbing Hand? State Bureaucracy and Privatization Effectiveness J

IZA DP No. 3958

Helping Hand or Grabbing Hand?State Bureaucracy and Privatization Effectiveness

J. David BrownJohn S. EarleScott Gehlbach

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Forschungsinstitutzur Zukunft der ArbeitInstitute for the Studyof Labor

January 2009

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Helping Hand or Grabbing Hand?

State Bureaucracy and Privatization Effectiveness

J. David Brown Heriot-Watt University and IZA

John S. Earle

Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, Central European University and IZA

Scott Gehlbach

University of Wisconsin, Madison and CEFIR

Discussion Paper No. 3958 January 2009

IZA

P.O. Box 7240 53072 Bonn

Germany

Phone: +49-228-3894-0 Fax: +49-228-3894-180

E-mail: [email protected]

Any opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research published in this series may include views on policy, but the institute itself takes no institutional policy positions. The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author.

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IZA Discussion Paper No. 3958 January 2009

ABSTRACT

Helping Hand or Grabbing Hand? State Bureaucracy and Privatization Effectiveness*

Why have economic reforms aimed at reducing the role of the state been successful in some cases but not others? Are reform failures the consequence of leviathan states that hinder private economic activity, or of weak states unable to implement policies effectively and provide a supportive institutional environment? We explore these questions in a study of privatization in postcommunist Russia. Taking advantage of large regional variation in the size of public administrations, and employing a multilevel research design that controls for pre-privatization selection in the estimation of regional privatization effects, we examine the relationship between state bureaucracy and the impact of privatization on firm productivity. We find that privatization is more effective in regions with relatively large bureaucracies. Our analysis suggests that this effect is driven by the impact of bureaucracy on the post-privatization business environment, with better institutional support and less corruption when bureaucracies are large. JEL Classification: H11, L33, P23, P26, P37, P48 Keywords: privatization, bureaucracy, economic reform, Russia Corresponding author: John S. Earle Upjohn Institute for Employment Research 300 South Westnedge Avenue Kalamazoo, Michigan 49007 USA E-mail: [email protected]

* Much useful feedback was received from seminar, workshop, and conference participants at the Carnegie Moscow Center, CEFIR, the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Georgia State University, Heriot-Watt University, the Ronald Coase Institute, the University of California at San Diego, the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, Yale University, and annual meetings of the American Political Science Association and the Midwest Political Science Association.

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1 Introduction

In recent decades economic reforms aimed at reducing the role of the state in the economyhave swept the developing and formerly communist worlds. Yet despite high hopes, the effectof these reforms has been sharply uneven. Why have similar economic reforms been successfulin some environments but not others? Are reform failures the consequence of leviathanstates that hinder private economic activity, or of weak states unable to implement policieseffectively and provide a supportive institutional environment? We explore these questionsin a study of privatization in postcommunist Russia. Taking advantage of large variationacross Russia’s regions in the size of public administrations, and employing a multilevelresearch design that controls for pre-privatization selection in the estimation of regionalprivatization effects, we examine the relationship between state bureaucracy and the impactof privatization on firm productivity.

The role of the state in economic reforms has been central to the study of postcommunisttransitions. In response to the sometimes disappointing outcome of these reforms, especiallyin the countries of the former Soviet Union, many have stressed what seems to be theparticularly dysfunctional nature of postsocialist bureaucracies (e.g., Frye and Zhuravskaya,2000; Hellman, Jones and Kaufmann, 2000). Beyond this general consensus, however, thereis little agreement on whether the problem is too much of the wrong kind of state, onethat projects a “grabbing hand,” or not enough of the right kind of state, one unable tooffer a “helping hand” (Frye and Shleifer, 1997). Certainly rent-seeking bureaucrats raisethe cost of doing business in postcommunist countries, a fact established in various cross-national enterprise surveys (e.g., EBRD, 2005). That said, the bureaucracies of EasternEurope and the former Soviet Union are not large by world standards, and some—mostnotably Russia’s—are in fact quite small (Brym and Gimpelson, 2004).1 Together withthe relative difficulty of extracting tax revenues in many postcommunist countries (e.g.,Treisman, 1999; Gehlbach, 2008), this has led some observers to characterize postsocialiststates as more “incapable” than “grabbing” (Easter, 2002), unable to enforce contracts,implement antitrust and bankruptcy laws, and generally provide an environment conduciveto private economic activity (Grzymala-Busse and Jones Luong, 2002).

In principle, bureaucracy size could affect reform outcomes for a number of distinct reasons.Larger bureaucracies might have greater capacity, which could be used for good or ill. Post-communist governments were asked to perform tasks fundamentally different from those oftheir communist predecessors, and those with larger bureaucracies may have found it easierto implement reforms effectively and provide the necessary legal and regulatory infrastruc-ture. Alternatively, more capacious states may have found it easier to interfere, predatingand erecting barriers that negated the intended effects of reform. The size of the bureau-cracy could also affect the incentives of bureaucrats, an argument associated especially withShleifer and Vishny (1993). On the one hand, the power of any individual bureaucrat to

1Goldsmith (1999) makes a similar point with respect to African bureaucracies. Schiavo-Campo, deTommaso and Mukherjee (1997) report that 0.8 percent of the Russian population is employed in governmentadministration, versus an unweighted average across postcommunist countries of 1.9 percent and acrossOECD countries of 4.3 percent.

1

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extract rents might be less when there are many competing bureaucrats able to providethe same service (e.g., license or permit), improving the institutional environment for pri-vate economic activity. On the other hand, if a larger bureaucracy implies that functionsare subdivided into various services that are complementary from a private actor’s point ofview, then each additional bureaucrat may act as a “toll taker” who fails to internalize theimpact of his “toll” (e.g., bribe) on the demand for other bureaucrats’ services.2 In sum,there are reasons to expect either a positive or negative impact of bureaucracy size on reformoutcomes, though the actual direction of the effect is an empirical rather than a theoreticalquestion.

These concerns are of particular importance to postcommunist privatization, the central pol-icy in the effort to transform economies oriented around public ownership and bureaucraticcoordination into ones where private economic activity and market coordination predomi-nate. The premise was that the profit-motivated owners of privatized enterprises would en-gage in active restructuring to improve their firms’ performance. Unlike passive state-ownedenterprises, privatized firms were expected to invest in new technology and equipment, to layoff surplus labor or restructure their workforces, and to develop improved or completely newproducts and markets. In each of these cases, the active participation and cooperation of thebureaucracy would be essential. A bureaucracy geared toward grabbing, or one that was sim-ply incapable, could raise the costs of any actions that the new private owners might want tocarry out, and in the limit might prevent any improvements from taking place. In contrast,a bureaucracy oriented toward helping would issue the necessary permits and approvals andprovide the complementary infrastructure that would reduce the costs of restructuring. Theopportunities for bureaucratic influence—both predatory and supportive—are therefore es-pecially important for privatized firms, such that an examination of the relationship betweenstate bureaucracy and privatization effectiveness offers an important test of the role of thestate in market-oriented economic reforms.

To explore the relationship between state bureaucracy and privatization effectiveness, we ex-ploit a unique panel data set on the performance of nearly 25,000 state-owned and privatizedfirms in 77 Russian regions, taking advantage of large regional variation in bureaucracy sizefor reasons exogenous to the postcommunist transition. Using statistical methods originallydeveloped to control for selection bias in labor-market programs, we estimate the impact ofprivatization on firm performance at the regional level while controlling for the possibilitiesthat better-performing firms and firms with better prospects were more likely to be selectedfor privatization. We find large variation in the impact of privatization on multifactor pro-ductivity. We then examine region-level determinants of estimated regional privatizationeffectiveness, focusing especially on the size of state bureaucracy, measured as the number ofemployees in public administration (not public employment more generally), controlling forpopulation. This focus on within-country variation allows us to hold constant many featuresof the macroeconomic environment and privatization-policy design that vary across coun-tries, while focusing on institutional variation as an explanation for variation in privatization

2If bureaucrats collude, then the total bribe is independent of the number of bureaucrats. The perfectcollusion cited by Shleifer and Vishny in the cases of monarchies and “old-time Communist regimes” may,however, be harder to maintain when the number of bureaucrats is large.

2

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outcomes.

We find that privatization has a larger (more positive) effect on firm performance in regionswith relatively large state bureaucracies. The estimated effect—which controls for regionaldifferences in industrial structure—is quite large and robust to model specification (includ-ing estimation by OLS, FGLS, and 2SLS), choice of sample, and the inclusion of numerouscontrols. Differences in the predicted effectiveness of privatization in regions with largeand small bureaucracies are comparable in magnitude to observed differences in privatiza-tion effectiveness across postcommunist countries. Our estimates suggest that this effect isdriven by increases in the performance of privatized firms in regions with relatively largebureaucracies rather than decreases in the performance of state-owned enterprises. Further-more, we find that of the three categories of bureaucrats for which we have disaggregateddata, the impact on privatization effectiveness is limited to variation in the size of regionalexecutive-branch bureaucracies, which plausibly have the greatest influence over the regionalbusiness environment. We observe little evidence that state bureaucracy influences privati-zation effectiveness through privatization-program implementation, as might be the case ifmore effective owners were selected in regions with relatively large bureaucracies. In con-trast, we find some evidence using data from two recent surveys of Russian firms that the sizeof regional bureaucracies affects the post-privatization business environment, with privatefirms in regions with relatively large bureaucracies reporting shorter waiting times and fewerbribes when dealing with bureaucrats.

Beyond their role in helping to understand the role of the state in economic reform, theresults in this paper contribute more generally to the literature on state administration asa key factor in explaining economic development. Cross-national studies have borne outWeber’s insight that the character of the bureaucracy matters for growth (e.g., Knack andKeefer, 1995; Mauro, 1995; Evans and Rauch, 1999). Somewhat surprisingly, however, giventhe central role that the state plays in theories of economic development, relatively little isknown about the empirical relationship between the size of the bureaucracy and economicperformance.3 As we show below, state-owned as well as privatized enterprises appear to bebetter off in regions with relatively large bureaucracies, implying that economic performanceoverall may be positively related to the size of the bureaucracy. Extending the analysis toother aspects of economic performance and other countries is an important agenda for futureresearch.

The paper proceeds as follows. Section 2 reviews the literature on postcommunist privatiza-tion and firm performance, emphasizing the puzzles that have been raised by this researchand how our paper helps to address them. In Section 3 we introduce our data, and in Section4 we discuss our empirical strategy. Our main findings are presented in Section 5, where weestablish a positive relationship between state bureaucracy and privatization effectiveness.We explore two alternative mechanisms through which this relationship might operate inSection 6. Section 7 concludes.

3There has been some theoretical investigation. See, e.g., Acemoglu and Verdier (2000).

3

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2 Research on postcommunist privatization and firm

performance

The design of privatization policies and their consequences for firm performance have beenamong the most discussed and researched issues in postcommunist Eastern Europe and theformer Soviet Union. From the early 1990s, many policymakers and observers viewed pri-vatization as the linchpin of a strategy to improve managerial incentives, encourage firmrestructuring, and generally effect a shift to a “private property regime” (Frydman and Ra-paczynski, 1994, p. 169). The initial enthusiasm for ownership change led in most countriesto rapid divestment through programs of “mass privatization,” which generally used vouch-ers for citizens to acquire shares (Blanchard et al., 1993; Boycko, Shleifer and Vishny, 1995).Some of these programs also gave special preferences to employees of the companies con-cerned, leading to large-scale ownership by managers and workers, in degrees varying withthe design of the program and with the particular outcomes for each company. The emphasison privatization became decidedly less fashionable later in the 1990s, as many critics arguedthat the programs had either done little good and resulted in misplaced priorities—for in-stance, by neglecting institutional change—or had actually caused damage—for example, byfacilitating asset-stripping (e.g., Stiglitz, 1999; Roland, 2001).

Yet until very recently the empirical support for either of these positions was quite weak. Thepro-privatization enthusiasm at the beginning of transition had little or no relevant previousexperience that could serve as its basis, and there had been few systematic studies by thelate 1990s to corroborate the negative views of the critics. The little evidence availableto support such evaluations was limited to either macroeconomic performance indicatorsor detailed observations of a few firms. Just as the critics’ position, which was part of abroader attack on the “Washington consensus,” seemed to become dominant, a surge ofstatistical studies of privatized firms appeared. These studies, as summarized in reviewsby Megginson and Netter (2001) and Djankov and Murrell (2002), tended to find positiveeffects of privatization on measures of firm performance in many countries. But the studiessuffered from enough methodological weaknesses to make them ineffective in persuading mostskeptics.

Among the important methodological problems in most research on the firm-performanceeffects of privatization are small sample size and short time series, with concomitant inabilityto conduct meaningful comparisons and control for selection bias in the privatization process.Short of a randomized experiment, an analysis of privatization effects requires detailed paneldata with a large enough number of privatized and state-owned firms within industries anda long time series of observations on each firm before and after the privatization process.Yet nearly all studies until the early 2000s used survey samples of at most a few hundredfirms, and the data were either cross-sectional or at best had only a few years of data. Thesmall samples made it difficult to carry out appropriate comparisons, so that privatizedfirms in some industries were evaluated relative to state-owned firms in others. The shorttime series made it difficult to take into account possible biases in the selection of firmsto be privatized. For example, if firms with inherently higher productivity or more rapidlygrowing productivity have a higher probability of privatization, then a simple comparison of

4

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pre- and post-privatization performance would result in a positively biased estimate of thetrue privatization effect.

These methodological issues have been addressed in more recent research, in particular byBrown, Earle and Telegdy (2006). Their results for Hungary, Romania, Russia, and Ukraineprovide much stronger support for the earlier conclusion of the Djankov and Murrell (2002)survey that the effect of privatization is considerably stronger in Eastern Europe than theCIS.4 The pattern across countries raises some puzzles, however: while the effect of privati-zation to foreign investors on productivity is uniformly positive and large (generally 20–40percent, depending on the precise specification), the effect of privatization with new do-mestic owners is largest in Romania (14–24 percent), followed by Hungary (5–15 percent)and Ukraine (2–4 percent).5 The estimates are actually negative for Russia, and althoughsmall in magnitude (-3 to -5 percent), they are always statistically significantly differentfrom zero. Further analysis of the dynamics of these effects shows that while in Hungary,Romania, and Ukraine the impact of privatization tended to be fairly immediate, i.e., in thefirst post-privatization year (with a slight lag in Ukraine), in Russia the initial effect wasdistinctly negative and progressively worse through the first four post-privatization years,with a modest positive impact appearing only after about seven years.

Why does the effectiveness of privatization vary so much, and why is the Russian effectzero or even negative? A leading hypothesis is that institutional variation across countriesplays a role in producing these divergent outcomes—Miller and Tenev (2007) write, forexample, that Russian privatization was “implemented in an environment of a weak state,which did not have the capacity to protect its ownership rights and coordinate reforms”—but this explanation alone is inconsistent with the finding that Romania’s privatizationimpact is larger than Hungary’s, and Ukraine’s larger than Russia’s.6 The much debatedmethods of privatization might also be part of the answer, and that explanation is certainlyconsistent with the much larger and more uniform effect of ownership by foreign investors,but it does not fully account for the cross-country differences in the estimates. Among othercandidate explanations, Brown, Earle and Telegdy (2006) find little systematic variation ineffectiveness of privatization by cohort (which could arise due to different methods being usedacross time or learning about how to implement privatization more effectively), calendar year(different macroeconomic conditions or business environments across time), growth in thefirm’s industry, or industrial composition.

A major difficulty in these attempts to identify the source of variation in privatization ef-fectiveness is that the very small number of countries for which careful estimates of priva-

4Djankov and Murrell (2002) estimate privatization effects for two regions (Eastern Europe and CIS)from a meta-analysis of studies that typically rely on cross-section data (or very short panels) from a widevariety of sources (mostly small firm surveys and some individual data), use different econometric methodsfrom one another, and analyze outcomes other than productivity (e.g., sales, new products, wage arrears,debt default, qualitative restructuring, successful transactions, etc.).

5The ranges given here depend on whether the specification allows for firm-specific time trends or merelyincludes firm fixed effects, a methodological issue discussed in Section 4 below.

6The World Bank’s (1996) four-group classification of 26 transition economies, for example, puts Hungaryin the first group of leading reformers, Romania in the second group, Russia in the third, and Ukraine inthe fourth.

5

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tization effectiveness are available precludes reliable statistical analysis. Moreover, there issubstantial variation across postcommunist countries in privatization design and macroeco-nomic performance, both of which may affect institutional development and privatizationperformance, and thus much heterogeneity that is difficult to hold constant in cross-nationalcomparisons. Our focus on Russia in this paper allows us to take advantage of institutionalvariation across a comparatively large number of regions, as well as variation in the impactof privatization on firm performance. We are thus able to more carefully investigate onecandidate explanation for cross-sectional variation in privatization effectiveness, even whileholding privatization design and the macroeconomic environment constant. Our particularemphasis on state bureaucracy addresses the fundamental question about postcommunistinstitutions raised above: is the problem too much of the wrong state, or not enough of theright one?

3 Data

We use panel data on manufacturing enterprises in Russia to estimate the effect of privatiza-tion on firm-level total factor productivity by region. The firm-level data are collected by theFederal State Statistics Service (Rosstat), the Russian successor to the corresponding agencyin the USSR. The basic statistical methodologies and data collection mechanisms have re-mained unchanged through this period. We combine information from industrial-enterpriseregistries with joint-venture registries and balance-sheet data to construct comprehensivedata and fill in missing values.

According to the Federal State Statistics Service, the industrial registries are supposed toinclude all industrial firms with more than 100 employees, plus those that are more than25 percent owned by the state and/or by legal entities that are themselves included in theregistry. In fact, the practice seems to be that once firms enter the registries, they continueto report even if the original conditions for inclusion are no longer satisfied. The datamay therefore be taken as corresponding to the “old” sector of firms (and their successors)inherited from the Soviet system. Certainly with respect to this set of firms, the databasesare quite comprehensive. At the beginning of the transition process in 1992, the firms inthe Russian industrial registry accounted for 91 percent of officially reported total industrialemployment. The Russian data are available as an unbalanced panel from 1985 to 2004.

We exclude non-manufacturing sectors and non-profit organizations from this data set. Tofocus on the effects of privatization with a relatively homogeneous comparison group, we alsoinclude only firms that are state-owned on entry into the database. Finally, we retain firm-years in the sample only when they contain complete information, which does not reduce thesample appreciably. The resulting sample contains information on 24,684 enterprises, with269,390 firm-year observations.

Table 1 presents summary statistics for the firm-level variables used in this analysis. The datainclude measures of Output, Employment, and Capital stock, as well as industry affiliationand regional location. The data do not contain an ownership variable prior to 1993, nordo they distinguish between minority and majority shares, instead containing codes for 100

6

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percent state, mixed state-private, 100 percent (domestic) private, joint ventures, and 100percent foreign. Virtually all the privatizations in our data are mass privatizations (not leasebuyouts), so the earliest they could have taken place was October 1992, and other sourcessuggest that nearly all of these led to majority private ownership (e.g., Boycko, Shleifer andVishny, 1995). Therefore we classify all mixed firms as private, together with the otherthree private categories. We classify all joint ventures as Foreign private, combining themwith the 100-percent-foreign category, but together they comprise only about one percent ofthe sample by the end of the period of observation. The residual category—the differencebetween private and foreign—we label Domestic private.

To measure bureaucracy size in each region, we use employment in federal, regional, andlocal public administration per 1000 residents, which we term Bureaucracy (with “per 1000residents” implied), provided for the years 1995–2004 by the Federal State Statistics Service.This category is far narrower than all public employment, excluding teachers, doctors, andother state employees not part of the bureaucracy. Included are employees of the executive,legislative, and judicial branches of government, though personnel of the Ministries of Inte-rior (i.e., police) and Defense are excluded. Approximately three quarters of these employeesare civil servants, with the remainder support staff such as secretaries and drivers (Brymand Gimpelson, 2004); data for 2004 suggest little regional variation in the ratio between thetwo. For some exercises we disaggregate public-administration employment into three broadcategories for which data are available for the entire period 1995–2004: executive-branchemployees formally subordinated to the federal government (Federal executive bureaucracy);executive-branch employees formally subordinated to regional and local governments (Re-gional executive bureaucracy); and public-administration employees in other branches ofgovernment (Bureaucracy, other branches), the vast majority of whom work either in thecourt system or the procuracy.

Because we estimate an average regional privatization effect—not a separate effect for eachregion-year—for most regressions we average public-administration employment per 1000residents over the period 1995–2004; we discuss possible endogeneity concerns associatedwith this treatment just below. We use the log of this measure, and in all regressions controlfor the log of regional Population in the appropriate period (e.g., log of average populationover 1995–2004). This specification accounts for economies of scale in public administration(e.g., Alesina and Spolaore, 2003), which imply that per-capita bureaucracy will be smalleron average in more populous regions,7 and controls for the direct impact of populationon privatization effectiveness (e.g., through attractiveness to investors, given fixed costs ofinvestment in a region).

As Table 2 and Figure 1 illustrate, there is substantial and systematic variation across re-gions in our measure of public-administration employment. This variation appears to bedriven in part by historical experience and other idiosyncratic factors, as it is remarkablystable over time—the bivariate correlation between any two adjacent years is never below0.99—and not fully explained by other regional characteristics. In particular, though there isa general increase in the size of bureaucracies over this period, this affects all regions more orless equally, as would be the case if employment in any given year were benchmarked against

7The pairwise correlation between log bureaucracy and log population is -0.85.

7

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previous-year staffing levels. Moreover, as Gimpelson and Treisman (2002) report, any vari-ation over time appears not to be driven by changes in regional revenues, as might be thecase if variation in economic performance produced variation in public-administration em-ployment. Nonetheless, to assure that our use of average public-administration employmentdoes not drive our results, we reran all regressions reported below using public-administrationemployment in 1995 rather than average employment; the results are qualitatively similar.

The stability of regional variation in public-administration employment suggests little rea-son to be concerned that bureaucracy is endogenous to regional privatization effectiveness.Nonetheless, our estimates of the impact of state bureaucracy on privatization effective-ness could be biased by the omission of some regional characteristic correlated with bothpublic-administration employment and privatization effectiveness. Although our results arerobust to the inclusion of numerous covariates, as a further robustness check we employinstrumental-variables techniques, identifying the impact of state bureaucracy from plau-sibly exogenous regional variation in public-administration employment. In particular, weinstrument (log) bureaucracy on log Population density and number of Jurisdictions. Thesevariables affect the size of bureaucracy through two different types of scale economies, the for-mer because less densely populated regions may require relatively more bureaucrats, and thelatter because regions with more jurisdictions require more bureaucrats.8 As a consequence,any effect of bureaucracy on privatization effectiveness identified through this instrumen-tation strategy is likely to operate through incentives within the bureaucracy rather thanthrough capacity, as bureaucracies that are larger for only these reasons may not be physi-cally more capable of producing public goods or intervening in the economy (e.g., because anyindividual bureaucrat would spend more time transporting himself across a Siberian regionthan across Moscow). Below we report Hansen J statistics from such two-stage least squaresregressions to test the assumptions that these instruments have been properly excluded.

In addition to log population, in all of our region-level regressions we control for a num-ber of characteristics that may be correlated with both regional privatization effectivenessand our measure of state bureaucracy. We include (log) Income per capita (adjusted forregional CPI) and Urbanization, as both variables may affect product and input marketsand so potentially the gains from privatization, and they could also reflect the demand forshares in the privatization process. Because these variables may in turn be affected by thesuccess of privatization, we use data from 1992 (income per capita) and 1991 (urbanization),both before the initiation of mass privatization in Russia, though as we discuss below ourresults are robust to using values from later years. We also include a dummy variable (Au-tonomous region) equal to one if the region is an ethnic republic (nineteen regions) or anautonomous oblast (one region), as the legal and institutional environment might differ inregions granted more autonomy.9 In further robustness checks, we also control for a number

8Bureaucracies might also be larger in less densely populated regions if Soviet planners made dispropor-tionate investments in administrative capacity in underdeveloped and sparsely populated regions east of theUrals (e.g., Hill and Gaddy, 2003) and if those elites persisted from the communist to the postcommunistperiod (Szelenyi and Glass, 2003). Note that because log population density can be rewritten as log popula-tion minus log territory, we implicitly control for both population and territory when regressing bureaucracyon number of jurisdictions.

9Our results are nearly identical if we instead define autonomous region as a republic only. Russia’s

8

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of other geographic, economic, and political characteristics of regions, as described in Section5 below.

4 Empirical strategy

We employ a multilevel research design that first estimates regional privatization effective-ness from firm-level data and then regresses those region-level estimates on various regionalcharacteristics. For the first stage of this two-stage procedure, we follow the estimationapproach of Brown, Earle and Telegdy (2006) in using program-evaluation techniques toassess and control for selection bias in the privatization process. Brown, Earle, and Telegdyshow that estimated effects of privatization are extremely sensitive to the specification ofunderlying heterogeneity across firms, and they demonstrate that the data imply that firmsselected for privatization not only tend to be more productive on average than firms remain-ing state-owned, but also exhibit faster productivity growth. Once these two idiosyncraticfactors are taken into account, however, no discernable selection bias remains. A number ofspecification tests imply that the specification containing both a firm fixed effect (FE) anda firm-specific trend (FT) is preferred to specifications omitting these components, and wethus employ this specification (FE&FT) to estimate regionally varying privatization effectsin this paper. We also permit the technology parameters to vary across industries, and weinclude a full set of industry-year effects to control for time-varying industry characteristicsand shocks that may be correlated with both ownership and productivity.

Our estimating equation for the first stage is

xjt = f (kjt, ljt) + Yγ + wtαj + Fjtφ+DjtIϑ+DjtRδ + ηjt, (1)

where j indexes firms and t indexes 20 time periods (years 1985 to 2004). The variablexjt is output, f is a 1 × 10 vector of industry-specific production functions, kjt is capitalstock, ljt is employment, Y is a 1 × 200 vector of industry-year interaction dummies, γ isthe associated 200 × 1 vector of coefficients, wt is a vector of aggregate time variables, αj

is the vector of associated individual-specific slopes, and Fjt is an indicator of whether thefirm was foreign-owned at the end of year t−1 and φ the associated coefficient. The variableDjt is an indicator for domestic private ownership, I is a 1× 10 vector of industry dummieswith ϑ the associated vector of coefficients, R is a 1 × 77 vector of region dummies, and δis the vector of coefficients of interest in this paper: the region-level productivity effect ofdomestic privatization. Finally, ηjt is an idiosyncratic error.

Concerning the functional form of f , we focus on the Cobb-Douglas function in this paper,as Brown, Earle and Telegdy (2006) show that estimated privatization effects are robust toalternative functional forms (including translogs and a variety of assumed factor shares). Theestimated functions are permitted to vary across industries, and the inclusion of interactions

federal system includes a number of semi-autonomous regions that are embedded within larger regions.Unfortunately, our firm data identify only the broader region in which the firm resides, though as we discussbelow our results are robust to controlling for presence of a semi-autonomous region in the broader region.Missing data for some of the regional variables reduce the number of regions in the data set from 80 to 77.

9

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between domestic private ownership and industry dummies removes the effect of regionalvariation in industrial composition. We always include a full set of unrestricted industry-yearinteractions, the Y, which allows different productivity levels for each industry in each year,controlling for any time- and industry-varying factors such as price changes not capturedby deflators, unmeasured factors of production, and quality differences across industry-yearcells.

Our methods of controlling for selection bias are embodied in the specification of wt. TheFE&FT model with firm fixed effects and firm-specific trends has wt ≡ (1, t), so that αj ≡(α1j, α2j), where α1j is a fixed unobserved effect and α2j is the specific trend for firm j. Inpractice, the FE&FT model is estimated in two steps, the first detrending all variables foreach firm separately and the second estimating the model on the detrended data. Standarderrors are corrected for correlation of error terms across observations for the same firm.10

Given the very small number of foreign-privatized firms in our data set, we do not attemptto estimate a separate foreign-privatization effect for each region, but assume an effect φthat is constant across regions. In fact, as discussed above, Brown, Earle and Telegdy(2006) find uniformly positive and large effects of foreign privatization across the countriesin their study, in contrast to the quite different effects of domestic privatization that areour focus. Nonetheless, to assure that our results are not driven by this treatment, were-estimated Equation 1, excluding all firms ever under foreign ownership. The estimatedregional privatization effects for this subsample are nearly perfectly correlated with those forthe full sample, and the estimated relationship between state bureaucracy and privatizationeffectiveness is almost identical. For conciseness, in what follows we often refer simply toestimated privatization effects, omitting the qualifier “domestic.”

For the second stage of our multilevel procedure, we wish to estimate parameters of themodel δr = θ+Brζ + Zrµ+ ur, where δr is the productivity effect of domestic privatizationfor region r; θ is a constant; Br is log bureaucracy and ζ the associated coefficient; Zr is avector of control variables described below, including log population, with µ the associatedvector of coefficients; and ur is an error term with spherical variance σ2. We do not, however,observe δr directly, but instead have an estimate δr = δr + vr from estimation of Equation1. Our estimating equation for the second stage is therefore

δr = θ +Brζ + Zrµ+ (ur + vr) = θ +Brζ + Zrµ+ εr, (2)

where we define εr ≡ ur + vr and assume that ur and vr are independent. The difficultyin estimating Equation 2 is that the precision of first-stage estimates of δr will generallybe greater in regions with more firm-year observations, implying that εr will have smallervariance in such regions. Estimation of Equation 2 by ordinary least squares would thereforebe inefficient and could produce inconsistent standard errors.

We address this problem of second-stage heteroskedasticity in two ways. First, we simplyestimate Equation 2 by ordinary least squares but calculate heteroskedasticity-robust stan-dard errors. This produces consistent parameter estimates and standard errors, but does

10Our analysis of serial correlation in the residuals suggests that the process is not a simple AR(1), andthe lagged residuals are sometimes significant (with varying signs) up to 4 lags, with patterns differing acrossspecifications.

10

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not exploit the known variance structure arising from the first-stage estimation procedure.Second, we employ a feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) estimator first suggested byHanushek (1974; see Lewis and Linzer, 2005 and Jusko and Shively, 2005 for recent treat-ments).11 The logic of this estimator is that more weight should be given to regions whereδr has been estimated relatively precisely, but only to the degree that vr is an importantcomponent of εr.

Formally, denote the standard error of δr from first-stage (firm-level) estimation as ωr, andthe N×N estimated variance matrix (where N is the number of regions) associated with thevector δ as G. Further, denote the residual for region r from OLS estimation of Equation 2 as

er. An unbiased estimate of σ2 is thus σ2 =[∑

r e2r −

∑r ω

2r + tr (X′X)−1 X′GX

]/(N−K),

where K is the number of regressors in the second-stage model, and X is the N ×K matrixof regressors. We then define the estimated variance matrix O ≡ G+σ2I for use in FGLSestimation.

As discussed in the previous section, we check the robustness of our results by instrumentingbureaucracy on population density and the number of jurisdictions at the regional level.We present results from two-stage least squares regressions, calculating heteroskedasticity-robust standard errors to account for heteroskedasticity arising from estimation of regionalprivatization effects.

5 Results

We begin by discussing results from the first stage of our multilevel procedure, where weestimate the region-level productivity effect of domestic privatization from firm-level data.Because we include both firm fixed effects and firm-specific trends in Equation 1, theseestimates are based on deviations resulting from privatization from the productivity trendfor each individual firm, controlling for industry-year shocks.12 Further, because Equation1 allows the privatization effect to vary across sectors as well as regions, our estimates ofregional privatization effectiveness control for the composition of regional industry (e.g., thatTyumen has more natural-resource firms than St. Petersburg).

Variation in these regional estimates is large, ranging from a 46-percent reduction in multifac-tor productivity in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast to a 40-percent increase in Kamchatka,13

with an unweighted mean across regions of minus 9 percent. Figure 2 illustrates the frequencydistribution of these estimates, and Figure 3 provides a map.

11Lewis and Linzer (2005) and Jusko and Shively (2005) each focus on the special case in which the first-stage sampling errors are independent of each other. That is not the case in our model, given that the δrare estimated in a single equation. Our FGLS estimator therefore takes the more general form suggested byHanushek (1974).

12Thus, for example, privatization would have the same impact on two firms—one poised to attractinvestment, the other burdened with excess employment and declining demand—if it increased productivitytwo percent above a positive trend in the first case and two percent above a negative trend in the second.

13Such outliers are usually smaller regions with fewer observations, implying that these estimates shouldbe treated with relative caution. Our FGLS estimation does precisely this.

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Table 3 summarizes the key result of this paper, the estimated impact of state bureaucracyon regional privatization effectiveness. The first two columns present OLS and FGLS regres-sions of our estimates of regional privatization effectiveness on log bureaucracy (per 1000residents) and the covariates discussed above. In each regression, the estimated effect of statebureaucracy on regional privatization effectiveness is large and statistically significant. Theestimated effect of bureaucracy is larger, and the associated standard error is smaller, in theFGLS regression, where greater weight is given to regions in which first-stage privatizationeffects are estimated with relative precision. Controlling for other regional characteristics, aone-standard deviation increase in log public-administration employment is associated witha 7–8 percentage-point increase in regional privatization effectiveness. To put this result inperspective, Brown, Earle and Telegdy (2006), using the same (FE&FT) estimation methodthat we employ in the first stage of our multilevel procedure, estimate the impact of privati-zation to domestic owners in four postcommunist countries to range from minus three percentin Russia to fourteen percent in Romania. Thus, variation in state bureaucracy within Rus-sia is associated with differences in privatization effectiveness comparable to those observedacross postcommunist countries.

This estimated relationship is robust to changes in specification and sample. As discussedabove, we obtain a similar estimate of the relationship between state bureaucracy and pri-vatization effectiveness if we substitute log bureaucracy in 1995 for the log of average bu-reaucracy from 1995 to 2004. We also replaced all of our regional characteristics with valuesfor various years between 1995 and 2004, with no fundamental change in our results.14 Ourresults are also essentially unchanged if we run the OLS model having excluded influen-tial observations (i.e., those with large DFBETA statistics).15 Moreover, we obtain nearlyidentical results when we include the firm’s founding date in the first stage as a measureof capital obsolescence (late-developing regions with larger bureaucracies might have fewersuch firms), and very similar results from a one-stage “interaction model,” where we modelthe regional privatization effect as a deterministic function of regional characteristics. Wehave checked that our results are robust to exclusion of Moscow and St. Petersburg from thesample, and to inclusion of numerous other covariates, including share of regional output inresource extraction; regional output and employment concentration; quality of local trans-portation infrastructure; distance from Moscow; share of population in higher education;mean January temperature; border region; presence of a semi-autonomous region embeddedwithin the larger region; proxies for democracy, government transparency, media freedom,party strength, and governor power; and vote for Yeltsin in 1991.16

14In particular, income per capita in 1992 might be a poor proxy for local purchasing power later in thetransition period, though we obtain nearly identical results when we substitute values from later years.

15Checking for influential observations is particularly important in a multilevel context, where estimationerrors in the first stage may produce outliers that drive results in the second. See, e.g., Achen (2005).

16Given that Equation 1 controls for industry-specific privatization effects, any effect of resource extractionwould reflect the impact of regional industrial structure on all firms in a region, whether such firms operatein resource extraction or not. Stoner-Weiss (1997) and Hale (2003) focus on the incentive of regional Russianleaders to promote economic development, highlighting the role of industrial concentration and strength ofgovernors’ political machines, respectively. Mean January temperature might be correlated with regionalprivatization effectiveness if investors were less attracted to inhospitable regions populated by Soviet planners(Hill and Gaddy, 2003).

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Our baseline results thus point to a strong effect of bureaucracy size on privatization effec-tiveness. In principle, this relationship could be spurious if large bureaucracies were alsobetter-paid, since greater formal compensation may encourage bureaucrats to exert effortand refrain from rent seeking. To check that this is not driving our results, we constructedvarious measures of expenditures on government administration, adjusting for regional CPIand considering different aggregations across level of government. Although positively cor-related with bureaucracy size after controlling for population, inclusion of (the log of) thesemeasures produces little substantive change in our results, and the effect of the expensevariables themselves is never significant.

Further evidence that bureaucracy size drives privatization effectiveness comes from ourinstrumental-variable regression, presented in the last column of Table 3. Both of ourinstruments—population density and number of jurisdictions—are strongly correlated withbureaucracy in the first stage of the 2SLS regression, in a direction consistent with scaleeconomies in public administration, and the Hansen J -statistic (which allows a test of overi-dentification in the presence of heteroskedasticity) provides evidence that these variables areproperly excluded.17 The second-stage estimate of the effect of bureaucracy on privatiza-tion effectiveness is statistically significant and of a magnitude slightly larger than in theFGLS regression. This is suggestive of an effect of bureaucracy size on incentives withinthe bureaucracy, rather than on physical capacity to implement economic reforms or providepublic goods, as bureaucracies that are larger solely because of scale effects may not haveany greater capacity. Consistent with this interpretation, Shetinin et al. (2005) report thatregional officials in Russia often issue permits in areas where they have no formal licensingauthority, with the cost of such permits less than that of the corresponding licenses fromfederal authorities. If firms are able to choose among such approvals, then the cost of acquir-ing licenses to engage in economic activity could be negatively associated with the numberof regional officials. We present further evidence of this effect in the following section.

In principle, a positive estimated relationship between state bureaucracy and regional priva-tization effectiveness could reflect two different effects. First and perhaps most obviously, itis possible that larger bureaucracies improve the performance of privatized firms, while hav-ing less impact on state-owned enterprises. Second, it may be that large state bureaucraciesfind it easier to meddle in the affairs of state-owned enterprises, thus worsening their perfor-mance; to the extent that bureaucrats are unable or disinclined to similarly interfere withthe operation of privatized firms, the estimated impact of privatization on firm performancewould be greater in regions with relatively large bureaucracies. Combinations of both effectsare also possible.

Unfortunately, we cannot evaluate these possibilities in any specification that includes firmfixed effects, as in any such specification only the relative magnitude of firm characteristicscan be estimated. The only way to address this issue is in a pooled OLS context, in which

17If we include both instruments as regressors, then the estimated coefficient on bureaucracy is 0.259(significant at p = 0.155), and the estimated coefficients on both log population density and number of juris-dictions are small and imprecisely estimated. Analogous results obtain if we perform the same exercise withdisaggregated bureaucracy, discussed below, with an estimated coefficient on regional executive bureaucracyof 0.218 (significant at p = 0.072).

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it is possible to estimate separate regional effects for state and private firms. We thereforeestimate the following equation:

xjt = f (kjt, ljt) + Yγ + Fjtφ+ SjtIκ+ SjtRχ+DjtIλ+DjtRν + ηjt. (3)

This equation differs from Equation 1 in omitting the detrending term wtαj, and in includingseparate ownership-industry and ownership-region interactions for state-owned (Sjt = 1,Djt = 0) and domestically owned private (Sjt = 0, Djt = 1) firms. Given the issues associatedwith selection bias in the privatization process, the difference in estimated regional private(ν) and state (χ) effects is not our preferred estimate of regional privatization effectiveness.What is of interest is whether the estimated state effect is the same or larger in regionswith relatively large bureaucracies. If that is the case, then the evidence would suggest thatstate bureaucracy improves privatization effectiveness by disproportionately improving theperformance of privatized firms, rather than by worsening the performance of state-ownedenterprises.

Table 4 presents results from regressions of the state effect estimated in Equation 3 on statebureaucracy and other regional characteristics, using the same three estimators as in Table3. In each specification, the estimated coefficient on bureaucracy is positive and statisti-cally significant. The evidence implies that state bureaucracy does not affect privatizationperformance by making state-owned enterprises worse off; on the contrary, bureaucracy isestimated to improve state-enterprise efficiency. But the estimated effect of bureaucracy onthe productivity of privatized firms is even greater.18 On balance, the hand of the state“helps” rather than “grabs.”

But which hand? Table 5 reports results from regressions analogous to those in Equation 2,but with disaggregated state bureaucracy. (Because we have three bureaucracy categoriesbut only two instruments, we cannot employ our instrumental-variables estimator here.) Ofthe three categories for which we have annual data from 1995–2004, only regional executive-branch bureaucracy is associated with privatization effectiveness. This is consistent with aninterpretation of regional bureaucracies as having the most direct influence over the regionalbusiness environment. Alternatively, this result could be driven by variation in the power ofregional governors vis-a-vis the center, if that variation is reflected in variation in the relativesize of regional and federal bureaucracies. However, if we include the ratio of regional tofederal employees together with (log) bureaucracy, then the estimated impact of bureaucracyis statistically significant as in Table 3 while that of the regional/federal ratio is not. Similarresults hold with regressions where the dependent variable is the state effect estimated inEquation 3.

The evidence in this section is thus that bureaucracy size, and in particular the numberof bureaucrats employed by the executive branch of regional governments, is associatedwith better privatization performance. In the following section we explore two alternativemechanisms through which this effect might have operated.

18To see whether regional characteristics might have affected selection bias in the privatization process, weregressed the difference in the estimated privatization effect from Equation 3 (the difference in the estimatedregional state and private effects) and that from Equation 1 on the same regional characteristics as in ourother specifications. None of the estimated regional effects in this model are statistically significantly differentfrom zero.

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6 State bureaucracy and privatization effectiveness:

mechanisms

Why do privatized firms perform better in regions with relatively large state bureaucracies,and in particular, with relatively large regional executive-branch bureaucracies? In principle,state bureaucracy might affect privatization performance through two separate mechanisms,which are not mutually exclusive. First, it is possible that privatization was conducted dif-ferently in regions with more bureaucrats. For example, it is possible that privatization inregions with large regional bureaucracies resulted in higher-quality owners, i.e., those whowere more willing or able to restructure. Second, it may be that the post-privatization busi-ness environment was different in regions with relatively large regional bureaucracies, suchthat privatized firms found public officials more supportive of their efforts to restructure. Inthis section we explore the “privatization implementation” and “post-privatization businessenvironment” hypotheses in turn. In each case we face data constraints that prevent us fromdrawing strong conclusions, so the results we report should be viewed as suggestive but notdefinitive.

6.1 Privatization implementation

Our data—while comprehensive in terms of firm-year coverage—offer little detail about post-privatization ownership structure. (As discussed above, we observe only whether a firm wasprivatized to a domestic or foreign owner; given the paucity of foreign privatizations wefocus on domestic privatization effects.) Nonetheless, we may explore the privatization-implementation hypothesis through other tests. In the results we report from these tests,we define bureaucracy as the number of public-administration employees in the relevantcategory in 1995, the first year for which we have data and the year most relevant for theprivatization-implementation hypothesis, as mass privatization in Russia was conducted fromlate 1992 to mid-1994. However, all of our results are robust to defining bureaucracy as theaverage over 1995–2004, as in the previous section.

Our first exercise takes advantage of substantial variation across regions in the proportionof firms privatized. The Russian privatization program relied on managers and employeesto organize the cumbersome processes of corporatization and initial share allocations, andthe bureaucracy’s primary role was to check that the proper procedures were followed (Fry-dman, Rapaczynski and Earle, 1993; Boycko, Shleifer and Vishny, 1995). The bureaucracythus mainly performed a blocking function in the overall process, such that poorly oper-ating and understaffed bureaucracies might have been less successful in preventing poorlydesigned privatizations from going forward, resulting in worse ownership structures and lowerprivatization effectiveness.

We test this hypothesis by controlling in our second-stage regressions for the fraction of firmsin each region that were eventually privatized (Privatization propensity). If this variable atleast partially drives the observed relationship between regional bureaucracy and privatiza-tion effectiveness, then the estimated effect of privatization propensity should be negative

15

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and the estimated effect of regional bureaucracy in Table 5 should decline when privatiza-tion propensity is added to the equation, in the limit becoming insignificantly different fromzero. Our results, shown in the first two columns of Table 6, contradict this hypothesis. Theestimated relationship between privatization probability and privatization effectiveness isnot significantly different from zero, and the estimated coefficients on log regional executivebureaucracy are statistically indistinguishable from those in Table 3.

A second test of the privatization-implementation hypothesis is suggested by a particularfeature of the Russian privatization program. According to Russian privatization legisla-tion, regional governments retained control over privatization of small enterprises, definedas enterprises with up to 200 employees and one million rubles of fixed assets as of January1, 1992; all other privatizations were governed from Moscow (Frydman, Rapaczynski andEarle, 1993). Consequently, if bureaucrats influenced the privatization process for firms intheir regions, this was more likely the case for small than large firms. Evidence that statebureaucracy—and in particular, regional executive-branch bureaucracy—improves privati-zation effectiveness more for small than for large firms would therefore be consistent withthe privatization-implementation hypothesis.

To explore this hypothesis, we estimate the following first-stage equation:

xjt = f (kjt, ljt) + Yγ + wtαj + Fjtφ+DjtIϑ+DjtRδ + LjtDjtRψ + ujt.

As in Equation 1, we control for selection bias in the privatization process through ourspecification of wt. The inclusion of the term LjtDjtRψ captures the marginal privatiza-tion effect for small firms, measured at the regional level, where the dummy variable Ljt

equals one if a firm meets the definition of small in the privatization legislation, and zerootherwise. Our interest is in the vector of coefficients ψ: a positive relationship betweenestimates of these effects and regional bureaucracy would be consistent with the hypothesisthat bureaucracy influences privatization effectiveness, at least in part, through the processof privatization itself. As shown in the second two columns of Table 6, however, the ef-fect of all of the bureaucracy variables, including regional executive-branch bureaucracy, isstatistically indistinguishable from zero.

The evidence thus does not support the hypothesis that regional bureaucracies influenceprivatization effectiveness through the process of privatization itself, as any such influencewould likely be reflected in regional differences in the propensity to privatize or in variationin the effect of privatization on small and large firms. In the following section we explorethe alternative hypothesis that regional bureaucracies influenced privatization effectivenessthrough the post-privatization business environment.

6.2 Post-privatization business environment

Our firm-level data contain no direct measures of business-state relations, so we turn to twoalternative data sets: a Centre for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR) survey moni-toring the regulatory burden of small enterprises conducted in the spring of 2002 (hereafterreferred to as the “Monitoring” survey), and the Russia sample from the 2005 round of the

16

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EBRD-World Bank Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS).Although cross-sectional in nature, late relative to the bulk of Russian privatization, and farless comprehensive in regional coverage than the firm data we use in the rest of this paper,each survey includes questions that can be used to evaluate the regional business environ-ment. The Monitoring sample was constructed from random draws from lists of registeredfirms within each region, whereas the BEEPS survey employed quotas for employment, lo-cation, industry, ownership, and exporter status.19

We focus on measures of business-state relations that could plausibly be affected by thesize of regional executive-branch bureaucracies, on the one hand, and affect the relativeperformance of privatized firms, on the other. For the Monitoring survey, we examine therelationship between bureaucracy and four “objective” measures of the firm’s regulatoryburden, each focusing on licenses received in the second half of 2001 and each measuredin logs: Average time elapsed to license, Maximum time elapsed to license, Firm’s person-hours to get license, and Average license price (including official payment, costs of usingintermediaries and consultants, gifts, etc.). For the BEEPS, we examine measures of themagnitude of Bribes to bureaucrats and Kickbacks to bureaucrats (measured as percentageof sales and contract value, respectively) for firms in the respondent’s “line of business,”as well as categorical measures of the degree of Contract/property-rights enforcement andthe firm’s ability to Appeal administrative violations without recourse to unofficial payments(i.e., bribes). Table 7 presents summary statistics and complete wording for these measures.

For both data sets, we are forced to draw region-level inferences from a small number of re-gions: 20 for the Monitoring survey, and 14 for the BEEPS.20 We therefore rely on parsimo-nious specifications, relating measures of business-state relationships to size of bureaucracyand regional population (measured the year prior to the survey), as well as to various firm-level characteristics. Consistent with our estimation strategy in the rest of the paper, weassume the presence of unobserved region-level effects. This is conservative, as the standarderrors we calculate from these “random-effects” models are generally larger than the analo-gous heteroskedasticity-robust standard errors that correct for arbitrary correlation withinclusters.21

Because we have too few state-owned enterprises in either data set to evaluate the interactiveeffect of ownership and regional characteristics, we drop these firms from the subsequentanalysis. Our results should thus be viewed as reflective of the business environment forprivate firms. In principle, the regional business environment for state-owned enterprisesmight vary either in similar or quite different ways, but privatized firms likely had a largermotivation to undertake costly restructuring to improve their performance, and therefore

19We have access only to the first round of the Monitoring survey, conducted in 2002. Previous rounds of theBEEPS, conducted in 1999 and 2002, include no region identifier. Further information on the Monitoring sur-vey is available at http://www.cefir.ru/ezhuravskaya/policy/Round1_Monitoring_eng_report.pdf.The 2005 BEEPS data set and related information are available at http://www.ebrd.com/country/sector/econo/surveys/beeps.htm.

20We obtain results qualitatively similar to those reported above when regressing estimated privatizationeffects on regional characteristics for these subsamples.

21Donald and Lang (2007) provide Monte Carlo evidence that “cluster-robust” standard errors are sys-tematically too small when the number of clusters is small.

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they had the most to gain or lose from the performance of public officials.

Our primary interest is in the impact of regional executive bureaucracy—the only categoryof bureaucracy significantly associated with privatization effectiveness—on the business en-vironment for private firms, though the effect of the other measures may be of some indepen-dent interest. Table 8 presents results from the Monitoring regressions. Regional executivebureaucracy is negatively associated with all four measures, implying a lower waiting timeand cost to obtain a license in regions with more regional executive bureaucrats per capita.22

With the exception of the third model, where the firm’s person-hours to get a license isthe dependent variable, the estimated coefficients on regional executive bureaucracy arestatistically significant. We obtain similar results from other specifications, including OLSregressions with heteroskedasticity-robust standard errors that do and do not adjust forregional clustering, between-effects regressions, and regressions that include other regionalcontrols (including income per capita, urbanization, and autonomous region). In all cases,the estimated coefficient on regional executive bureaucracy is negative, and it is always sig-nificant in regressions where the dependent variable is average or maximum time elapsed tolicense.

Table 9 presents results from the BEEPS regressions, including marginal effects for ordered-probit regressions where categorical measures are the dependent variable. Regional executivebureaucracy has a large and statistically significant effect on kickbacks to bureaucrats, witha one-standard deviation increase in log regional executive bureaucracy predicted to reducekickbacks by close to one percent of the contract value. This result is robust to the samealternative specifications as with the Monitoring data: only for the between-effects regressiondoes the estimated effect of regional executive bureaucracy lose significance, though themagnitude is still sizeable. The estimated effect of regional executive bureaucracy in theother three models is not statistically significant, though always with the expected sign.

Thus, within the limits imposed by the very small number of regions represented in these datasets, the results here provide some evidence that larger regional executive bureaucracies—which the regressions in Table 5 identified as that portion of the bureaucracy responsible forbetter privatization performance—contributed positively to the post-privatization businessenvironment, reducing wait times and lowering costs for licenses and government contracts.In principle, lower wait times could be driven either by increased capacity or better incentives(i.e., competition among bureaucrats) in larger bureaucracies. In contrast, the relationshipbetween bureaucracy size and the cost of licenses and government contracts seems moreconsistent with improved incentives resulting from bureaucratic competition. Without dis-counting the numerous frustrations of private firms in Russia in dealing with public officials,it appears that those problems may be smaller in regions where there are more bureaucratswith whom to work, with positive consequences for the relative performance of privatizedfirms.

22In a regression of the number of licenses and authorizations possessed by the respondent on the sameregional and firm characteristics, the estimated coefficient on log regional executive bureaucracy is negativeand statistically insignificant. Thus, the lower average waiting time and cost of obtaining a license in regionswith large regional executive bureaucracies does not appear to be offset by a need to obtain more licenses.

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7 Conclusion

In principle, large bureaucracies may work for or against economic reforms designed toreduce the role of the state. Taking advantage of large variation across Russian regions inthe size of public administrations, we find strong evidence that privatization had a larger(more positive) impact on firm performance where regional executive bureaucracies werelarge. Our analysis suggests that this effect was driven primarily by the impact of statebureaucracy on the post-privatization business environment, rather than on the process ofprivatization itself.

Scholars accustomed to viewing bureaucrats as inefficient and venal may be surprised by ourfinding of a positive relationship between bureaucracy size and privatization effectiveness.Yet inefficiency does not imply that bureaucrats are incapable of providing institutionalsupport for reform, but merely that bureaucratic capacity may need to be augmented. Withrespect to venality, our results point especially to an incentive effect of bureaucracy size,where rent seeking by any individual bureaucrat is discouraged when bureaucracies are large.One normative implication of this analysis is that the recent emphasis on providing bettercompensation to fewer bureaucrats may be misplaced. Making more officials available toindividuals with business before the state may be the best way to assure that state authorityis not misused.

Strong policy recommendations await further research, however, with a need to examine theimpact of bureaucracy size in other policy and political contexts. Moreover, greater attentionmust be given to the direct cost of building a large bureaucracy: this paper has focused onlyon the impact of bureaucracy size on reform outcomes. The results of this research will helpto illuminate the tradeoffs involved in choosing the optimal size of the state.

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Brown, J. David, John S. Earle and Almos Telegdy. 2006. “The Productivity Effects ofPrivatization: Longitudinal Estimates from Hungary, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine.”Journal of Political Economy 114(1):61–99.

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Djankov, Simeon and Peter Murrell. 2002. “Enterprise Restructuring in Transition: A Quan-titative Survey.” Journal of Economic Literature 40(3):739–792.

Donald, Stephen G. and Kevin Lang. 2007. “Inference with Differences in Differences andOther Panel Data.” Review of Economics and Statistics 89(2):221–233.

Easter, Gerald. 2002. “Politics of Revenue Extraction in Post-Communist States: Polandand Russia Compared.” Politics and Society 30(4):599–627.

EBRD. 2005. Transition Report 2005: Business in Transition. London: European Bank forReconstruction and Development.

Evans, Peter and James E. Rauch. 1999. “Bureaucracy and Growth: A Cross-NationalAnalysis of the Effects of ‘Weberian’ State Structures on Economic Growth.” AmericanSociological Review 64(5):748–765.

Frydman, Roman, Andrzej Rapaczynski and John S. Earle. 1993. The Privatization Processin Russia, Ukraine, and the Baltic States. London: CEU Press.

Frydman, Roman and Andzrej Rapaczynski. 1994. Privatization in Eastern Europe: Is theState Withering Away? Budapest: CEU Press.

Frye, Timothy and Andrei Shleifer. 1997. “The Invisible Hand and the Grabbing Hand.”American Economic Review 87(2):354–358.

Frye, Timothy and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya. 2000. “Rackets, Regulation and the Rule ofLaw.” The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 16(2):478–502.

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Hale, Henry E. 2003. “Explaining Machine Politics in Russia’s Regions: Economy, Ethnicity,and Legacy.” Post-Soviet Affairs 19(3):228–263.

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Hanushek, Eric A. 1974. “Efficient Estimators for Regressing Regression Coefficients.” TheAmerican Statistician 28(2):66–67.

Hellman, Joel S., Geraint Jones and Daniel Kaufmann. 2000. “‘Seize the State, Seize theDay’: State Capture, Corruption, and Influence in Transition.” World Bank Policy Re-search Working Paper No. 2444.

Hill, Fiona and Clifford G. Gaddy. 2003. Siberian Curse: How Communist Planners LeftRussia Out in the Cold. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.

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21

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Szelenyi, Ivan and Christy M. Glass. 2003. Winners of the Reforms: The New Economicand Political Elite. In Inequality and Social Structure During the Transition, ed. VladimirMikhalev. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

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World Bank. 1996. From Plan to Market: World Development Report 1996. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.

22

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Table 1: Firm-level variables and summary statistics

1985 1992 1998 2004Output 497 617 360 584

(1,464) (5,783) (4,546) (6,083)Employment 781 779 438 452

(2,563) (2,537) (1,728) (1,798)Capital stock 339 562 664 999

(1,399) (3,218) (15,599) (21,611)Domestic private 0.000 0.000 0.693 0.659Foreign private 0.000 0.000 0.009 0.012

Notes: Means and standard deviations. Capital and output are expressed in constant 2004 mlnrubles. Output equals the value of gross output net of VAT and excise taxes. Employment equalsthe average number of registered industrial production personnel, which includes non-productionworkers, but excludes “nonindustrial” employees who mainly provide employee benefits. Capitalequals the average book value of fixed assets used in the main activity of the enterprise, adjusted forrevaluations. The domestic and foreign private dummies are based on Rosstat ownership classifica-tions as of December 31st of the previous year. The nonmonotonicity of the mean of the domesticprivate dummy is due to split-ups of state-owned firms that are subject to later privatization.

23

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Table 2: Variable definitions, sources, and summary statistics for region-levelvariables

Panel A: Definition and sources for regressors

Variable Definition and/or sourceBureaucracy Public administration employees per 1000 residents, Regiony

Rossii, RosstatPopulation Regiony Rossii, RosstatIncome per capita Regiony Rossii, RosstatUrbanization Urban population as proportion of total population, Regiony Rossii,

RosstatAutonomous region Dummy variable = 1 if region is republic or autonomous oblastPopulation density Residents per square kilometer, Regiony Rossii, RosstatJurisdictions 100s of raiony + goroda, Regiony Rossii, Rosstat

Panel B: Summary statistics

Mean Std. Dev. Min MaxRegressorsLog bureaucracy 2.175 0.243 1.514 2.883Log federal executive bureaucracy 1.126 0.259 0.588 2.049Log regional executive bureaucracy 1.512 0.253 0.578 2.246Log bureaucracy, other branches 0.119 0.319 −0.653 1.359Log population 7.258 0.786 5.303 9.094Log income per capita −1.987 0.330 −2.555 −0.982Urbanization 0.698 0.124 0.270 1.000Autonomous region 0.260 0.441 0 1Log population density 2.950 1.581 −1.029 9.010Jurisdictions 0.379 0.198 0.020 1.130Estimated effectsPrivatization effect −0.089 0.148 −0.463 0.401State-ownership effect 1.321 0.176 0.683 1.608Marginal privatization effect for small firms 0.080 0.333 −0.551 1.927

Note: Privatization effect, state-ownership effect, and marginal privatization effect for small firmsestimated from firm-level data summarized in Table 1; see text for details.

24

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Fig

ure

1:

Regio

nal

vari

ati

on

inst

ate

bure

aucr

acy

Not

es:

“Sm

all,”

“med

ium

,”an

d“l

arge

”ar

edefi

ned

asth

eco

rres

pon

din

gte

rciles

ofth

ere

sidual

sfr

oma

regr

essi

onof

log

public-

adm

inis

trat

ion

emplo

ym

ent

onlo

gp

opula

tion

.

25

Page 29: Helping Hand or Grabbing Hand? State Bureaucracy and …ftp.iza.org/dp3958.pdf · 2009-01-30 · Helping Hand or Grabbing Hand? State Bureaucracy and Privatization Effectiveness J

05

1015

Num

ber

of r

egio

ns

−.4 −.2 0 .2 .4Estimated regional privatization effect

Figure 2: Frequency distribution of estimated privatization effects

26

Page 30: Helping Hand or Grabbing Hand? State Bureaucracy and …ftp.iza.org/dp3958.pdf · 2009-01-30 · Helping Hand or Grabbing Hand? State Bureaucracy and Privatization Effectiveness J

Fig

ure

3:

Geogra

phic

dis

trib

uti

on

of

est

imate

dpri

vati

zati

on

eff

ect

s

Not

es:

Est

imat

edpro

duct

ivit

yeff

ect

ofdom

esti

cpri

vati

zati

onfr

omfirm

-lev

elF

E&

FT

regr

essi

on.

Est

imat

ion

contr

ols

for

indust

ry-s

pec

ific

pri

vati

zati

oneff

ects

,su

chth

atre

gion

alva

riat

ion

inin

dust

rial

stru

cture

isnot

resp

onsi

ble

for

regi

onal

vari

atio

nin

pri

vati

zati

oneff

ects

,as

wel

las

indust

ry-y

ear

inte

ract

ions.

27

Page 31: Helping Hand or Grabbing Hand? State Bureaucracy and …ftp.iza.org/dp3958.pdf · 2009-01-30 · Helping Hand or Grabbing Hand? State Bureaucracy and Privatization Effectiveness J

Table

3:

Sta

tebure

aucr

acy

and

pri

vati

zati

on

eff

ect

iveness

OL

SF

GL

S2S

LS

Est

imat

edSt

anda

rdE

stim

ated

Stan

dard

Est

imat

edSt

anda

rdco

effici

ent

erro

rco

effici

ent

erro

rco

effici

ent

erro

rL

ogbu

reau

crac

y0.

296∗∗

0.14

40.

351∗∗∗

0.12

40.

424∗∗

0.18

3L

ogpo

pula

tion

0.12

7∗∗∗

0.04

50.

141∗∗∗

0.03

90.

162∗∗∗

0.05

2L

ogin

com

epe

rca

pita

0.01

20.

063

−0.

001

0.05

1−

0.00

80.

066

Urb

aniz

atio

n0.

455∗∗

0.21

60.

458∗∗∗

0.15

40.

506∗∗

0.23

1A

uton

omou

sre

gion

0.08

9∗∗

0.03

80.

110∗∗∗

0.03

90.

102∗∗∗

0.03

6C

onst

ant

−1.

971∗∗∗

0.71

7−

2.21

9∗∗∗

0.61

1−

2.58

4∗∗∗

0.90

7L

ogpo

pula

tion

dens

ity

(firs

tst

age)

−0.

049∗∗∗

0.00

8Ju

risd

icti

ons

(firs

tst

age)

0.21

5∗∗

0.09

8F

-sta

tist

ic,

excl

uded

inst

rum

ents

(p-v

alue

)22

.80

(0.0

00)

Han

sen

Jst

atis

tic

(p-v

alue

)0.

514

(0.4

37)

Not

es:

Dep

ende

ntva

riab

leis

esti

mat

edpr

ivat

izat

ion

effec

tfr

omfir

m-l

evel

FE

&F

Tre

gres

sion

.L

ogpo

pula

tion

dens

ity

and

num

ber

ofju

risd

icti

ons

used

asin

stru

men

tsin

2SL

Sre

gres

sion

.H

eter

oske

dast

icit

y-ro

bust

stan

dard

erro

rsre

port

edfo

rO

LS

and

2SL

Sre

gres

sion

s.Se

ete

xtfo

rde

tails

onF

GL

Ses

tim

ator

.Si

gnifi

canc

ele

vels

:**

*=

0.01

,**

=0.

05,

*=

0.10

.

28

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Table

4:

The

impact

of

state

bure

aucr

acy

on

state

-ow

ned

ente

rpri

ses

OL

SF

GL

S2S

LS

Est

imat

edSt

anda

rdE

stim

ated

Stan

dard

Est

imat

edSt

anda

rdco

effici

ent

erro

rco

effici

ent

erro

rco

effici

ent

erro

rL

ogbu

reau

crac

y0.

310∗∗

0.14

60.

272∗∗

0.12

40.

347∗∗

0.14

9L

ogpo

pula

tion

0.05

90.

042

0.06

10.

040

0.07

00.

048

Log

inco

me

per

capi

ta0.

058

0.05

40.

061

0.05

10.

052

0.05

6U

rban

izat

ion

0.78

1∗∗∗

0.21

30.

788∗∗∗

0.15

50.

796∗∗∗

0.23

4A

uton

omou

sre

gion

−0.

056

0.04

2−

0.05

60.

039

−0.

052

0.04

2C

onst

ant

−0.

198

0.60

9−

0.12

80.

641

−0.

378

0.74

3L

ogpo

pula

tion

dens

ity

(firs

tst

age)

−0.

049∗∗∗

0.00

8Ju

risd

icti

ons

(firs

tst

age)

0.21

5∗∗

0.09

8F

-sta

tist

ic,

excl

uded

inst

rum

ents

(p-v

alue

)22

.80

(0.0

00)

Han

sen

Jst

atis

tic

(p-v

alue

)0.

672

(0.4

12)

Not

es:

Dep

ende

ntva

riab

leis

esti

mat

edst

ate-

owne

rshi

peff

ect

from

firm

-lev

elO

LS

regr

essi

on.

Log

popu

lati

onde

nsit

yan

dnu

mbe

rof

juri

sdic

tion

sus

edas

inst

rum

ents

in2S

LS

regr

essi

on.

Het

eros

keda

stic

ity-

robu

stst

anda

rder

rors

repo

rted

for

OL

San

d2S

LS

regr

essi

ons.

See

text

for

deta

ilson

FG

LS

esti

mat

or.

Sign

ifica

nce

leve

ls:

***

=0.

01,

**=

0.05

,*

=0.

10.

29

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Table 5: State bureaucracy and privatization effectiveness: branch and subordi-nation

OLS FGLSEstimated Standard Estimated Standardcoefficient error coefficient error

Log federal executive bureaucracy −0.051 0.167 −0.006 0.144Log regional executive bureaucracy 0.242∗∗∗ 0.089 0.256∗∗∗ 0.095Log bureaucracy, other branches 0.062 0.099 0.051 0.111Log population 0.105∗∗ 0.051 0.120∗∗∗ 0.043Log income per capita −0.003 0.063 −0.010 0.052Urbanization 0.557∗∗ 0.225 0.551∗∗∗ 0.173Autonomous region 0.076∗ 0.040 0.097∗∗ 0.042Constant −1.579∗∗ 0.615 −1.774∗∗∗ 0.516

Notes: Dependent variable is estimated privatization effect from firm-level FE&FT regression.Heteroskedasticity-robust standard errors reported for OLS regression. See text for details onFGLS estimator. Significance levels: *** = 0.01, ** = 0.05, * = 0.10.

30

Page 34: Helping Hand or Grabbing Hand? State Bureaucracy and …ftp.iza.org/dp3958.pdf · 2009-01-30 · Helping Hand or Grabbing Hand? State Bureaucracy and Privatization Effectiveness J

Table

6:

Sta

tebure

aucr

acy

and

pri

vati

zati

on

eff

ect

iveness

:pri

vati

zati

on-i

mple

menta

tion

hyp

oth

esi

s

Pri

vati

zati

onpr

open

sity

Smal

lvs

.la

rge

OL

SF

GL

SO

LS

FG

LS

Est

imat

edSt

anda

rdE

stim

ated

Stan

dard

Est

imat

edSt

anda

rdE

stim

ated

Stan

dard

coeffi

cien

ter

ror

coeffi

cien

ter

ror

coeffi

cien

ter

ror

coeffi

cien

ter

ror

Log

fede

ral

exec

utiv

ebu

reau

crac

y0.

123

0.15

90.

068

0.13

7−

0.36

20.

370

−0.

174

0.32

5L

ogre

gion

alex

ecut

ive

bure

aucr

acy

0.19

6∗0.

099

0.20

5∗∗

0.10

1−

0.19

60.

243

−0.

194

0.24

3L

ogbu

reau

crac

y,ot

her

bran

ches

−0.

071

0.11

9−

0.03

60.

128

0.59

90.

328

0.43

80.

304

Pri

vati

zati

onpr

open

sity

0.15

40.

229

0.03

60.

167

Log

popu

lati

on0.

103∗∗

0.04

40.

108∗∗

0.04

2−

0.15

00.

108

−0.

141

0.10

1L

ogin

com

epe

rca

pita

0.01

90.

070

0.00

70.

054

0.05

60.

141

0.05

50.

127

Urb

aniz

atio

n0.

561∗∗

0.22

40.

558∗∗∗

0.18

6−

0.26

20.

459

−0.

208

0.42

9A

uton

omou

sre

gion

0.11

2∗0.

056

0.10

6∗∗

0.05

1−

0.23

1∗∗

0.12

4−

0.18

70.

119

Con

stan

t−

1.73

3∗∗∗

0.55

5−

1.66

6∗∗∗

0.56

22.

288∗

1.33

51.

947

1.25

5

Not

es:

Dep

ende

ntva

riab

lein

first

two

mod

els

ises

tim

ated

priv

atiz

atio

neff

ect

from

firm

-lev

elF

E&

FT

regr

essi

on.

Dep

ende

ntva

riab

lein

seco

ndtw

om

odel

sis

esti

mat

edm

argi

nalp

riva

tiza

tion

effec

tfo

rsm

allfi

rms

from

firm

-lev

elF

E&

FT

regr

essi

on.

Het

eros

keda

stic

ity-

robu

stst

anda

rder

rors

repo

rted

for

OL

Sre

gres

sion

s.Se

ete

xtfo

rde

tails

onF

GL

Ses

tim

ator

.Si

gnifi

canc

ele

vels

:**

*=

0.01

,**

=0.

05,

*=

0.10

.

31

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Table

7:

Sum

mary

stati

stic

sfo

rM

onit

ori

ng

and

BE

EP

Sd

ata

Mon

itor

ing

dat

a:M

ean

Std.

Dev

.M

inM

axL

ogav

erag

eti

me

elap

sed

tolic

ense

3.33

01.

176

0.00

05.

900

Log

max

imum

tim

eel

apse

dto

licen

se3.

548

1.16

5−

0.69

37.

090

Log

firm

’spe

rson

-hou

rsto

get

licen

se2.

617

1.31

9−

2.99

66.

397

Log

aver

age

licen

sepr

ice

8.78

61.

768

1.60

919.7

42

BE

EP

Sd

ata:

Mea

nSt

d.D

ev.

Min

Max

Bri

bes

tobu

reau

crat

s1.

099

1.70

20.

000

10.0

00K

ickb

acks

tobu

reau

crat

s1.

973

4.33

20.

000

30.0

001

23

45

6C

ontr

act/

prop

erty

-rig

hts

enfo

rcem

ent

81(1

6.0%

)91

(18.

0%)

154

(30.

5%)

114

(22.

6%)

46(9

.1%

)19

(3.8

%)

App

eal

adm

inis

trat

ive

viol

atio

ns10

0(2

0.1%

)13

7(2

7.5%

)14

2(2

8.5%

)62

(12.

5%)

40(8

.0%

)17

(3.4

%)

Not

es:

Full

wor

ding

ofM

onit

orin

gqu

esti

ons:

“On

aver

age,

how

man

yda

ysel

apse

d/

Wha

tis

the

max

imum

tim

e[in

days

]el

apse

dbe

twee

nth

est

art

ofth

elic

ensi

ngor

auth

oriz

atio

npr

oced

ure

and

the

mom

ent

you

wer

eoffi

cial

lyno

tifie

dth

atyo

urre

ques

tha

dbe

enap

prov

edor

deni

ed?”

“On

aver

age,

how

muc

hti

me

[inpe

rson

-day

s]w

assp

ent

byyo

uan

dpe

rson

nel

ofyo

urfir

mfil

ling

out

form

san

dco

ntac

ting

licen

sing

offici

als?

”“O

nav

erag

e,ho

wm

uch

did

you

pay

tore

ceiv

ea

licen

seor

auth

oriz

atio

n(i

nclu

ding

offici

alpa

ymen

ts,

paym

ents

toin

term

edia

ries

and

cons

ulta

nts,

gift

s,et

c.)?

”“

Full

wor

ding

ofB

EE

PS

ques

tion

s:“O

nav

erag

e,w

hat

perc

ent

ofto

tala

nnua

lsa

les

dofir

ms

like

your

sty

pica

llypa

yin

unoffi

cial

paym

ents

/gift

sto

publ

icoffi

cial

s?”

“Whe

nfir

ms

inyo

urin

dust

rydo

busi

ness

wit

hth

ego

vern

men

t,w

hat

perc

ent

ofth

eco

ntra

ctva

lue

wou

ldbe

typi

cally

paid

inad

diti

onal

orun

offici

alpa

ymen

ts/g

ifts

tose

cure

the

cont

ract

?”“I

amco

nfide

ntth

atth

ele

gal

syst

emw

illup

hold

my

cont

ract

san

dpr

oper

tyri

ghts

inbu

sine

ssdi

sput

es.”

“If

ago

vern

men

tag

ent

acts

agai

nst

the

rule

sI

can

usua

llygo

toan

othe

roffi

cial

orto

his

supe

rior

and

get

the

corr

ect

trea

tmen

tw

itho

utre

cour

seto

unoffi

cial

paym

ents

/gift

s.”

Pos

sibl

ere

spon

ses

for

cont

ract

/pro

pert

y-ri

ghts

enfo

rcem

ent:

“str

ongl

ydi

sagr

ee”

(1),

“dis

agre

ein

mos

tca

ses”

(2),

“ten

dto

disa

gree

”(3

),“t

end

toag

ree”

(4),

“agr

eein

mos

tca

ses”

(5),

“str

ongl

yag

ree”

(6).

Pos

sibl

ere

spon

ses

for

appe

alad

min

istr

ativ

evi

olat

ions

:“n

ever

”(1

),“s

eldo

m”

(2),

“som

etim

es”

(3),

“fre

quen

tly”

(4),

“usu

ally

”(5

),“a

lway

s”(6

).

32

Page 36: Helping Hand or Grabbing Hand? State Bureaucracy and …ftp.iza.org/dp3958.pdf · 2009-01-30 · Helping Hand or Grabbing Hand? State Bureaucracy and Privatization Effectiveness J

Table

8:

Sta

tebure

aucr

acy

and

post

-pri

vati

zati

on

busi

ness

envir

onm

ent:

Mon

itori

ng

data

Log

aver

age

tim

eL

ogm

axim

umti

me

Log

firm

’spe

rson

-L

ogav

erag

eel

apse

dto

licen

seel

apse

dto

licen

seho

urs

toge

tlic

ense

licen

sepr

ice

Est

imat

edSt

anda

rdE

stim

ated

Stan

dard

Est

imat

edSt

anda

rdE

stim

ated

Stan

dard

coeffi

cien

ter

ror

coeffi

cien

ter

ror

coeffi

cien

ter

ror

coeffi

cien

ter

ror

Reg

ion

alch

arac

teri

stic

sL

ogfe

dera

lex

ecut

ive

bure

aucr

acy

−0.

063

0.54

80.

430

0.55

2−

0.64

90.

826

0.46

40.

928

Log

regi

onal

exec

utiv

ebu

reau

crac

y−

1.32

4∗∗∗

0.34

5−

1.07

7∗∗∗

0.34

2−

0.43

70.

491

−1.

250∗∗

0.57

6L

ogbu

reau

crac

y,ot

her

bran

ches

1.08

5∗∗

0.49

30.

731

0.49

40.

740

0.72

8−

0.34

10.

817

Log

popu

lati

on0.

037

0.21

30.

191

0.21

4−

0.06

00.

302

−0.

406

0.35

4F

irm

char

acte

rist

ics

Log

empl

oym

ent

0.18

7∗∗∗

0.05

80.

213∗∗∗

0.05

80.

208∗∗∗

0.06

80.

175∗

0.09

8In

dust

ry(o

ther

than

food

proc

essi

ng)

−0.

023

0.23

3−

0.05

80.

233

0.11

00.

280

0.18

70.

383

Food

proc

essi

ng−

0.50

0∗0.

291

−0.

590∗∗

0.29

4−

0.01

80.

352

−0.

242

0.49

7Se

rvic

es0.

037

0.21

8−

0.02

80.

220

0.02

90.

267

0.30

50.

369

Tra

de−

0.42

4∗∗

0.20

0−

0.54

1∗∗∗

0.20

2−

0.27

70.

244

−0.

532

0.33

3A

gric

ultu

re−

0.19

00.

362

−0.

162

0.38

5−

0.27

40.

439

0.81

90.

602

Con

stru

ctio

n0.

194

0.24

3−

0.08

20.

242

0.01

20.

293

−0.

029

0.39

3In

form

atio

nte

chno

logy

0.64

3∗∗

0.27

50.

495∗

0.27

80.

305

0.33

20.

266

0.45

5C

onst

ant

4.55

3∗∗

2.05

32.

787

2.06

83.

780

2.92

212.8

85∗∗∗

3.41

8N

412

405

405

376

R-s

quar

edbe

twee

n0.

633

0.51

50.

249

0.38

1

Not

es:

Ran

dom

-effe

cts

regr

essi

ons,

wit

hra

ndom

effec

tssp

ecifi

edat

leve

lof

regi

on(2

0to

tal)

.E

xclu

ded

cate

gory

isot

her

sect

ors.

Sign

ifica

nce

leve

ls:

***

=0.

01,

**=

0.05

,*

=0.

10.

33

Page 37: Helping Hand or Grabbing Hand? State Bureaucracy and …ftp.iza.org/dp3958.pdf · 2009-01-30 · Helping Hand or Grabbing Hand? State Bureaucracy and Privatization Effectiveness J

Table

9:

Sta

tebure

aucr

acy

and

post

-pri

vati

zati

on

busi

ness

envir

onm

ent:

BE

EP

Sd

ata

Bri

bes

toK

ickb

acks

toC

ontr

act/

prop

erty

-A

ppea

lad

min

is-

bure

aucr

ats

bure

aucr

ats

righ

tsen

forc

emen

ttr

ativ

evi

olat

ions

Est

.St

d.E

st.

Std.

Est

.St

d.M

arg.

Est

.St

d.M

arg.

coef

.er

ror

coef

.er

ror

coef

.er

ror

effec

tco

ef.

erro

reff

ect

Reg

ion

alch

arac

teri

stic

sL

ogfe

dera

lex

ecut

ive

bure

aucr

acy

−0.

674

1.26

6−

1.17

52.

192−

0.27

60.

510−

0.10

20.

223

0.51

50.

068

Log

regi

onal

exec

utiv

ebu

reau

crac

y−

0.28

10.

710−

3.03

0∗∗

1.35

40.

337

0.28

30.

125

0.03

20.

281

0.01

0L

ogbu

reau

crac

y,ot

her

bran

ches

−0.

172

1.29

8−

2.53

12.

266−

0.86

10.

525−

0.31

90.

949∗

0.53

50.

291

Log

popu

lati

on−

0.50

60.

543−

1.73

7∗0.

975−

0.04

50.

229−

0.01

70.

245

0.23

50.

075

Fir

mch

arac

teri

stic

sL

ogem

ploy

men

t−

0.00

40.

053

0.06

30.

139

0.05

20.

032

0.01

90.

028

0.03

20.

009

Min

ing

0.78

30.

663

0.15

21.

708

0.14

30.

390

0.05

40.

024

0.38

00.

008

Con

stru

ctio

n0.

328

0.34

62.

650∗∗∗

0.91

1−

0.16

70.

204−

0.06

0−

0.33

30.

206−

0.09

3M

anuf

actu

ring

−0.

004

0.31

00.

211

0.84

1−

0.00

70.

184−

0.00

3−

0.14

90.

188−

0.04

4T

rans

port

0.37

40.

418

0.39

01.

134−

0.20

90.

246−

0.07

4−

0.00

80.

252−

0.00

2W

hole

sale

/ret

ail

trad

e−

0.12

80.

294

0.79

40.

789−

0.07

60.

176−

0.02

8−

0.22

00.

178−

0.06

5B

usin

ess

serv

ices

−0.

123

0.35

20.

368

0.92

30.

026

0.20

90.

010−

0.06

00.

218−

0.01

8H

otel

s/re

stau

rant

s−

0.03

30.

493−

0.18

81.

235−

0.20

10.

304−

0.07

1−

0.53

4∗0.

286−

0.13

3O

ther

par

amet

ers

Con

stan

t/cu

tpoi

nt1

6.28

05.

612

20.4

34∗∗

10.0

16−

1.13

62.

352

1.35

92.

408

Cut

poin

t2

−0.

541

2.35

02.

153

2.40

8C

utpo

int

30.

254

2.35

02.

935

2.40

8C

utpo

int

41.

022

2.35

23.

435

2.41

0C

utpo

int

51.

674

2.35

54.

061

2.41

5N

499

466

505

498

R-s

quar

edbe

twee

n/lo

glik

elih

ood

0.10

10.

228

-821

.9-7

95.1

Not

es:

Ran

dom

-effe

cts

(firs

ttw

om

odel

s)an

dra

ndom

-effe

cts

orde

red-

prob

it(s

econ

dtw

om

odel

s,im

plem

ente

dw

ith

Stat

apa

ckag

egllamm)

regr

essi

ons,

wit

hra

ndom

effec

tssp

ecifi

edat

leve

lofr

egio

n(1

4to

tal)

.M

argi

nale

ffect

sfo

ror

dere

d-pr

obit

mod

els

are

chan

ges

(con

tinu

ous

ordi

scre

te)

inP

r(ou

tcom

e=

4)+

Pr(

outc

ome

=5)

+P

r(ou

tcom

e=

6).

Exc

lude

dca

tego

ryis

othe

rse

rvic

es.

Sign

ifica

nce

leve

ls:

***

=0.

01,

**=

0.05

,*

=0.

10.

34