DETERMINANTS OF PRIVATIZATION LEVELS IN DEVELOPING-COUNTRIES

Objective. The pace of privatization of government functions has incre ased in frequency and intensity in developing countries in recent year s. The goal of this exploratory study is to examine the impact of seve ral factors repeatedly identified in previous empirical work (in count ry case studies) as important factors that influence privatization: pu blic sector size, economic well-being, and strength of labor forces. M ethods. Data were gathered from a variety of international sources on 50 developing nations. The predicted relationships between privatizati on level and the three independent variables were tested using correla tion and multiple regression analysis. Results. The results do not sup port any of the proposed relationships. Among these weak predictors, s trength of labor force appears closest to statistical strength and sig nificance. Conclusions. While the findings may appear to support the v alue of situation-specific privatization research, other possibilities raised by this study such as the relative importance of labor force s trength and possible errors in operationalization need to be explored further.