ABSTRACT
The genesis of public enterprise and the processes through which major segments of it have emerged in a country have a material impact on the nature of its performance. This chapter reviews the diverse nature of impacts that flow from nationalisation of existing enterprises and creation of new enterprises in the public sector. A public enterprise comes into being either through nationalisation of an erstwhile private enterprise or through creation by the government of an enterprise de novo, or through governmental investment in what comes to be termed a mixed enterprise or a joint venture. Developing countries, while showing a variety of mixes of the two measures, have, by and large, attained their public enterprise sectors more substantially through fresh creation than through nationalisation. The governments of countries creating public enterprises anew are exposed to decisional costs of inexperience in the sectors concerned.
