The Role of the State in MENA Capital Markets

The role of the state in the social contract of the transitions of Arab societies and economies has been addressed from various angles in the past few years. While the state is not generally perceived as an accountable owner of corporate wealth in the MENA region, performance of State-owned Enterprises (SOEs) across the region shows significant variation. This project aims at compiling a database of all listed companies where the state exercises ownership, which would allow to potentially compare private and public companies operating in specific sectors in order to be able to draw conclusions on the efficiency of state ownership in the MENA region. It also investigates the methods and timing of privatization with a view to drawing conclusions on the impact of various mechanisms of privatization with outcomes for the state, and analyses the stakes that governments have accumulated through the accumulation of ownership stakes in listed companies and draw conclusions about the overall presence of the state in capital markets.