the current ratio and liquidity ratio. These indicators provide an estimate of the firm capability to meet its short-term and long-term obligations, respectively. Additionally, we assess profitability in terms of profit margins and return on investments using the return on assets (ROA) and returns on equity (ROE).

# **4. DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS**

Table 1 summarizes the sample distribution over time. Our sample covers approximately 2 million firms across 16 European countries between 2011 and 2020<sup>9</sup> operating across sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing, construction, to wholesale and trade services. Nonetheless, the sample excludes public administration, health, education and activities of households, and membership organizations following the WB BOS approach.<sup>10</sup> Our sample includes more than 27,000 BOS firms, which on average account for approximately 1.4% of the total number of firms in the sample. These firms with state participation contribute to 14% of the total revenues and 15% of the total employment (Table 1). Further details to document variations across countries are described in Annex 1.<sup>11</sup>

|**_Table 1. Di_**<br>|**_stribution o_**<br>|**_f the samp_**<br>|**_le by firm t_**<br>|**_ype and ye_**<br>|**_ar_**<br>|||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|**Firm**|**2011**|**2012**|**2013**|**2014**|**2015**|**2016**|**2017**|**2018**|**2019**|**2020**|**Average**|
|**type**<br>||||**Num**<br>|**ber of firm**<br>|**s**<br>||||||
|POEs|98.3%|98.4%|98.5%|98.6%|98.7%|98.7%|98.6%|98.7%|98.8%|98.8%|98.6%|
|BOSs|1.7%|1.6%|1.5%|1.4%|1.3%|1.3%|1.4%|1.3%|1.2%|1.2%|1.4%|
||||||**Revenues**|||||||
|POEs|84.9%|84.3%|84.8%|85.7%|86.3%|86.6%|86.4%|86.2%|87.3%|87.4%|86.0%|
|BOSs|15.1%|15.7%|15.2%|14.3%|13.7%|13.4%|13.6%|13.8%|12.7%|12.6%|14.0%|
|<br>||||**E**<br>|**mployment**<br>|||||||
|POEs|83.3%<br>|84.0%<br>|84.3%<br>|85.0%<br>|86.5%<br>|87.5%<br>|84.2%<br>|84.7%<br>|86.1%|85.7%|85.1%<br>|
|BOSs|16.7%|16.0%|15.7%|15.0%|13.5%|12.5%|15.8%|15.3%|13.9%|14.3%|15.0%|

_Source: Author’s calculations using WB BOS database and ORBIS._ Table 2 describes some summary statistics by country and shows some indications of performance gaps between BOSs and POEs. BOSs seem to be older and larger than POEs when measured by number of years in the market and number of workers across all countries in the sample. Yet, in most countries BOSs seem to be less profitable than POEs and obtain lower returns of investments -measured by assets and equity. BOSs also seem to achieve lower revenues per worker compared to POEs, except for four countries -Estonia, Spain, Italy, and Portugal. In terms of financial leverage, in about 90 percent of the countries, BOSs have a lower ability to cover short-term and long-term liabilities, measured by the current ratio and solvency ratio, respectively.

> 9 The total sample includes over 19.9 million observations.

> 10 The sectors include those covered by the WB BOS database (Dall'Olio, et al., 2022b).

> 11 The countries covered are Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Estonia, Spain, Croatia, Italy, Lithuania, Latvia, North Macedonia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, the Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovenia, and Ukraine.

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