State ownership and corporate governance of enterprises in Croatia

Views towards state-owned enterprises on the one hand and private property on the other side through history have changed often. However, strengthening the role of the state in the economy, which is driven by a major economic crisis in the late twenties to thirties of the last century, and continued with the completion of the Second World War led to a significantly more active role of state ownership in many economies. In the late seventies state enterprises began to fade in importance due primarily to overcome the perception of their inefficiency. It has been listed perception and source of many of the privatization process which culminated at the beginning of the transition. Privatization process, which took place in Croatia back the last two decades through the transformation and privatization, was very complex due to the fact that it took place in transitional and war environment, and today, two decades since the beginning of the privatization private sector share in GDP of the Republic of Croatia is still too small with a large number of enterprises that have remained in state ownership. It is clear that due to political and economic reasons huge progress in the privatisation process in Croatia cannot be expected soon and therefore it is necessary to ensure efficient management of the whole state portfolio. Focus of a large number of scientists is the question of microeconomic (in)efficiency of state-owned enterprises. Exactly with this purpose this paper will analyze the financial performance Croatian state-owned enterprises.