Ownership structures, patterns of control and enterprise behavior in Russia

In this paper, we analyse the effects of the massive Russian privatisation programme on the ownership of Russian firms and on the behaviour of formerly state owned enterprises. A large random sample of Russian firms is used to investigate the emerging ownership structures, patterns of control and enterprise behaviour. We find that workers have become the dominant owners in a majority ig Russian private firms; 65% of the total as against 19% being manager owned and 16% of being outsider owned. Higher- ownership appears to confer significantly more influence over decision-making on managers and outsiders, but not on workers. Most importantly however, we find no evidence that privatisation affects any major area of enterprise behaviour or performance.