Reappraising State-Owned Enterprise

1

Introduction

Franco Amatori, Robert Millward, and Pier Angelo Toninelli

AN ECONOMIC ACTOR DISCARDED TOO EARLY INTO THE WASTEBIN OF HISTORY

A reappraisal of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) is warranted in the light of the recent renewed interest in state intervention, the limited current literature, and the significant role played by SOEs in the 20th century. After a quarter century of almost general condemnation and rebuttal of the entire nationalization experience, second thoughts about governmental direct intervention in the economy are surfacing. Such a change was induced by the increasingly critical reflection about the globalization paradigm, which has strongly influenced Western culture and society since the 1980s. This in turn grew out ...