All the alleged key causes of SOE [State-Owned Enterprise] inefficiency the principal-agent problem, the free-rider problem and the soft budget constraint are, while real, not unique to state-owned enterprises. Large private-sector firms with dispersed ownership also suffer from the principal-agent problem and the free-rider problem. So, in these two areas, forms of ownership do matter, but the critical divide is not between state and private ownership it is between concentrated and dispersed ownerships.
![All the alleged key causes of SOE [State-Owned Enterprise] inefficiency the principal-agent Image](https://www.idlehearts.com/images/all-the-alleged-key-causes-of-soe-stateowned-enterprise-inefficiency-the-principalagent.jpg?x85372 "All the alleged key causes of SOE [State-Owned Enterprise] inefficiency the principal-agent")
