Abstract:

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) play a notable role in the economy representing an important part of the whole government activities, performance and financial position. The analysis of the role of state’s control over productive property in progressive restructuring of market-based economies figures largely in heterodox economics discourse. That is why research that clarifies what should be categorized as a SOE is of unquestionable importance for scholars researching the subject and working with data on SOEs. In achieving the objective of this research, a qualitative analysis was conducted using organized, transparent, and replicable procedures at each step in the process. By comparing and discussing different academic definitions of SOEs, we identified the key elements that should be used in defining SOEs: ownership, control, activity, objective, legal form. Furthermore, our work has proposed an explicit, neutral, reliable, transparent and rigorous layout for defining SOEs based on the previous literature.