The restructuring of state enterprises is an important aspect of all reforms in formerly socialist countries.
Mass privatization is one favored method of accomplishing such restructuring.
But analytical work on the consequences of mass privatization is only beginning. Longitudinal studies, which can illuminate the nature and speed of firm adjustment, are still rare. Work has been largely concentrated on the western rim of Eastern Europe and on Russia, where the issues are quite different from those in the second tier of reforming countries, those with less developed legal and market systems. So there are valuable lessons to be learned from analyses of the effects of the earliest privatizations in the second tier of reforming countries. Mongolia provides a fitting case study.