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http://ismeretvadasz.blog.hu/2014/10/05/iratismertetes_192

http://ismeretvadasz.blog.hu/2014/10/05/iratismertetes_192

Ezt nem akarta folytatni, ezért alább közlök néhány további fejezetet az Első Részből.

1.5. Financial capital in Eastern Europe

Everybody seems to agree on that Eastern Europe badly needs working capital imports but few analysts deal with the development of financial markets as their precondition. Financial markets are the realm of financial capital existing in interaction with working capital. Capital value expressed by stock prices is different from the reproduction and goodwill value of real assets. The ratio of stock exchange value and reproductory value is an important regulator of real investments. /12/ Generous tax exemptions and other measures have created incentives for working capital import into Hungary. Lack of normal telecommunication, bureaucracy and transitional risks create obstacles which can be counterbalanced only by seducing financial conditions.

Though Hungary boasts of the highest among newly emerging democracies speed of direct foreign investments the volume of their inflow is lagging behind the needs. The overruling of some takeovers already done somewhat worsened the whole climate for capital involvement. But securities markets remain all the time bearish owing to the high speed of inflation and not to some penniwise financial import policy measures. Financial markets are to be built up not only out of domestic savings which are poor but also by way of international capital involvement. Working capital imports are by no means the only alternative to growing indebtedness. Import of financial capital should be relied on to a much higher degree. This factor requires development of financial markets, which, for the beginning would not surely be 'efficient' ones. But if their regulation complies with business requirements exposure to foreign capital inflows might help them soon to attain a necessary degree of clearing power. So if policy-makers want to have efficient markets, first they should promote the development of any markets. And if they want to have more working capital imports they should create incentives also to non-working i.e. financial capital imports.

The above cannot be attained without letting all the national capital work and bring profits to the investors who should be able to reallocate their funds to business activities with expected higher returns. Financial markets are the most powerful instruments of capital reallocation. And corporate structure of industry and service /cf.1.2./ (cf. marks cross-references to this paper) is the most eminent purpose for their existence.

1.6. Corporations

In accordance with some earlier analyses in a 1981 public discussion this writer brought forward a proposal for transformation of state enterprises into corporations. A book in line with this idea in application to the then existing and now anachronistical situation was published in 1983 and its shorter English version in 1984. /13/ Some professional conclusions have been reproduced in quite a few economic documents of both the recent administration and its opposition. A system of business enterprises based on the functional division between owners and enterpreneurs was the gist of the proposed practice. The bearing of the risk that goes with investments was selected as a base of enterpreneurial gain or loss. Reducing of the state property and confining the state activities to macro-economic policy, a social safety-net, resarch-development and environmental issues were said to be preconditions for this type of business culture. The proposal offered a wide factor liberalisation program on the level of risk takers. If the managers were willing to pay higher wages they would have to withdraw funds from some other allocations, e.g. investments providing there was an adequate monetary policy. As regards capital involvement the managers were to attain the same wide range of autonomy as in production and employment decisions. The establishment of a bond and stock exchange was also propounded in 1981. The above was concluded by an initiative to establish a Bank of emission functioning independently of the government. Proposals on currency convertibility were made earlier.

The above mentioned strategy envisaged reducing the complex form of collective ownership by incorporation to the simple form of individual ownership. Thus state property might have attained a new character: it were to act in relation to other owners as a single individual. /Legal experts created a complementary theory to the effect that if the enterprizes are incorporated the state ceases to be an owner as an actor of public law. It can retain its holdings as a subject of private law./ Securities are the proper titles of ownership for profit oriented private owners. As any other owner the state is interested in dividends, bonds and shares prices, yields, etc. This sector may be significant in Central and Eastern Europe, where, apart from some other reasons, due to constraints to domestic purchasing power and limited foreign interest in real investments the state will remain a largest owner of assets in some industries for a long time to come. The strategy propounded in the early eighties /see above/ included practical suggestions on the issue. The majority of corporations would belong to portfolio firms and investment banks with the controlling package of them remaining in some cases with government institutions within a stepwise system of participation. This pattern cannot give an overall solution to the problem of state enterprises. It can be efficient only in the framework of extensive business relations as their partial but not dominating sector.

The privatisation of a considerable part of the state property remains an exigency. As it appears against the background of specific circumstances it is distinct from its theoretical model. To take it in the only context of abstract theory when arguing for or against a given decision in a given country would not be quite appropriate. An explicitly theoretical line of thought will be referred to under the next subheading.