Public Enterprise and Development

When used as a strategy of industrialization, state intervention involves the setting-up of public enterprises as instruments of development. Public enterprises are established by government and produce goods and services that are sold on the market for a price, fee or charge and are distinct from other types of public goods (Mascarenhas, 1982a). In the absence of a private sector in TW countries and the consequent inability to raise capital or attract entrepreneurs and managerial skills, governments set up public enterprises. As TW countries sought to promote economic development through rapid industrialization, the state became the natural source for mobilizing the resources for such investment. It is in such a context that public enterprise as a strategy of development is to be viewed, not from the narrow financial and economic perspective that currently dominates thinking (Mascarenhas, 1996) These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.