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Structures of public companies All non-collectivist countries distinguish traditionally between two types of legal organisation, viz under public and under private law. As regards the first type, purely public law companies without legal capacity tend to disappear to the advantage of public institutions (etablissements publics), which in turn change gradually by taking over managerial structures or forms of management from the private sector, unless they do not become companies rightaway. There seems to be a general trend towards assuming statute law types of organisation considering that public companies depend ever more on central bodies or firms, concerns, holdings, controlling “clusters” of subsidiaries. The public economy sector is hence taking on a new structure the main feature of which is the evolution towards 'public groups' . Here the development of a legal framework for the public company remains a delicate question, although some Latin-american countries and France work on it. The choice of structures has to respect a certain number of factors, such as convenience of management, type of tasks, technical and economic operating features, as well as national political options and problems of control. The author assesses in respect of each factor the various criteria to be taken into consideration to solve the problem of structural choice, of which the most prominent aspect is the need for constant adjustment. This need becomes in practice an issue of current management for the state and public groups.

Financing of public companies The financing of public enterprise gives rise to a series of conflicts : yield capacity and requirements of public service, company targets and general policy goals of governments, control and autonomy. Theoretically, the matter has been dominated by the conclusions of the NORA report (April 1967). The energy crisis was to change prospects thoroughly and frustrate the hopes put on the principles of self-financing, the implementation of which would have ruined the government's efforts to check inflation. But though the ‘strategy' of the Nora report was based on a given economie situation, it is less certain that the ‘doctrine' is no longer applicable inasmuch as it tends above ail to enable decision-makers to choose in full clarity : transparency of resource allocation, clear distribution of responsibilities, uniform pattern of public company accounts.

Social & economic development fund (SEDF) & investments of public companies In respect of public companies, the SEDF is both a credit bank contributing part of the necessary funds and a control device for investments and for their financing. Yet the SEDF concerns now only a limited number of public companies, i.e. those which remain closest to the State because of their monopoly, their important functions, their eminent public service obligations or their receipts being fixed by public rates. They are mainly concerned with transportation and energy. As an investment fund, the SEDF cannot start subsidizing national companies, but has to enable them to achieve more easily their most ambitious capital investments without upsetting the financial market. In addition, the SEDF is also preeminently a control device of investment programmes of public companies and their financing. To this efiect, the SEDF is an important instrument in the interministerial fund allocation process by deciding on the contents and methods of financing of investment programmes of national enterprise, while endeavouring ever more openly to have a close look at their yield capacity. Thus the conclusions of the Plan's vertical committees (in particular the Committee on Energy) affect SEDF's decisions, bridging over the gap between the thinking and the decision-making process.

Planning in a public service : the case of the autonomous enterprise of parisian transports (RATP) While transporting about 5 million people per day in the Paris region, the RATP could until recently call only upon sectoral plans which were used exclusively in the areas where they were of particular need. The decision to plan ail of the functions of the enterprise resulted in the conception of a plan of enterprise which allows for the information of public authorities, users and even public opinion about its projects, and which puts it in a better position to control its development by spelling out coherently all its main targets. The plan of enterprise is not a legal instrument binding the public authorities and the RATP but it implies prior concertation with each other. Hence the plan does not replace, nor is it substituted for other types of relations between public enterprise and public authorities, in particular those of a programme agreement type. It is nevertheless more than a simple informative instrument ; it is a real instrument for concertation both as regards public authorities and the RATP and within its own body, since all its ranks (directors, heads of service, division managers, medium level executives) decide on the contents of the plan. A link with national planning can easily be established, at least every fifth year when the national plan is negotiated.

Thoughts on a priori control of public companies A priori control has two particularly interesting aspects from the vantage point of modem thought : one economic the other managerial. As regards the first, a priori control should enable the State to prompt and promote a genuine public sector policy. However, this control is always implemented, in opposition to the conclusions of the Nora report, by way of a very tight, tentacular watch System which is so much more cumbersome for the autonomy of companies as their public service charges are heavy. The inadequacy of this System to the prompting function it is meant to fulfil is borne out in the competitive sector by the operations of public companies which act practically without any State direction, e.g. Régie Renault and the big nationalized banks which, moreover, pay out practically no profit or dividends to the public authority. As regards the managerial aspect, control implementing procedures are often inefficient as is evidenced by the disorderly development of subsidiaries and partnerships. This phenomenon results from incoherence rather than from a mutually agreed policy, since it produces two conflicting effects : the development of tacit nationalisations and the occurrence of a certain unbalance in the public sector. These deficiencies pinpoint the need for an overall revision of a priori control of public companies.

Leaders of public enterprise This study underlines a twin feature characterizing them. By their social and university background, as well as by their function, they belong to an elite. But they do not make up concomitantly a specific elite. Though their former career and the process of appointment assimilates them with high-rank civil servants, the idea they have of their role and their responsibilities are very close to those of private managers. The inexistence of any specifie feature common to all of them confirms the non-specificity of the group.

‘Transfer of technology' and its contradictions : some aspects of the algerian industrialisation The operation of industries freshly imported into Third World countries encounters many difficulties : ‘transfer of technology' the way it is practised warrants in no way the transfer of the operating conditions of the imported technology. Part of the failure is due to the present set-up of World markets : the extraversion of units which is justified in the developed capitalist countries presents a serious handicap for the Third World. Which direction will Algeria take in order to overcome these difflculties ? The continuation of the ‘development poles' policy can be foreseen over the near future. However, in case an unbalance of the present social pattern eventually upsets the present policy pattern, one may well visualize a reorientation of development in the sense of a greater diversification between the branches of the economy, the regions and the types of production units.

Recent developments of mixed enterprise in Japan Mixed enterprise has a double feature : on the one hand, its capital is owned by both private shareholders and public authorities, and on the other, the latter have to share in its management. Mixed enterprise developed considerably in the sixties in Japan with its main emphasis on the sectors of urban and regional development. The causes for this recent development are financial (to offset the shortcomings of the private sector in these areas) and relate to management (to find a more flexible means of intervention than through direct administrative action of a ministry or even through a local authority). It is hence their great managerial flexibility together with their financing facilities which explain the original experience mixed enterprises have produced in Japan. After a general description of Japanese public local enterprise, the author underlines the main features of public control by Parliament and Government over mixed enterprise.

Public companies in Poland After setting out the main features of the Polish national economy, the author underlines the overall importance of the socialized sector into which integrate the public companies. Mr. Krol puts a great emphasis on economic calculation, management System of public enterprise, based on using profitably trade exchanges, financial exchanges and the contribution of labour with a view to obtaining an economical and efficient management. He comments then on the economic calculation process of enterprise and the internal financial accounts. After a highly rigorous analysis of the legal structures of company executives and the participation procedures of staff in management, the author explains the reforms adopted in Poland after 1973 in order to confer a greater efficiency to the management of public enterprise, and also evokes prospective solutions adopted for the period 1976-1980.

Public companies in Morocco Moroccan public companies evidence the multiple contrasts of Moroccan society. Located peripherically in a very centralizing State, they make up a parapublic management structure which is meant to implement the promotion of the private sector within the framework of moroccanization of the economy. Invested with a national mission of development, they intend to call widely upon private capital from abroad, because of insufficient domestic private capital. The public companies rely on a large staff, machinery and important financial resources which are managed within a competitive System. They thus establish themselves as autonomous bodies which tend to dispense with the tutorship of the State, and follow their own policies. Their investment capacity and their managerial flexibility make them priority development factors but cause them also to assert an increasing autonomy in front of the State authority.