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The Economic Performance of State-owned Enterprises in Argentina an Empirical Assessment

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Abstract

This paper empirically investigates the economic performance of 13 Argentine SOEs. Among them, one displays a behavior consistent with profit maximization, eight exhibit a behavior consistent with output maximization with a maximum loss constraint, and four show a behavior consistent with employment maximization. Such behavior taken together is consistent with the use of SOEs to achieve government macroeconomic targets. We also have found that, although different political regimes have different effects on the behavior of individual SOEs, there is no evidence that the SOEs as a group performed differently under military regimes than under the populist Peron regime.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, 23187-8795

    Zhenhui Xu

  2. School of Business Administration, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, 66045

    Melissa H. Birch

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  1. Zhenhui Xu
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  2. Melissa H. Birch
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Xu, Z., Birch, M.H. The Economic Performance of State-owned Enterprises in Argentina an Empirical Assessment. Review of Industrial Organization 14, 355–375 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1007728013278

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