ABSTRACT
SOEs were widely established in industrial countries between the 1930s and 1950s and rapidly expanded among developing nations in the 1960s and 1970s. They were built with state ownership for reasons of social and economic justice. The rationale was that SOEs could avoid problems resulting from market failure. However, from the late 1970s and especially throughout the 1980s and 1990s, SOEs worldwide experienced widespread denationalization and privatization, perhaps the most dramatic case being that of the United Kingdom under the Thatcher government.
