This study considers the financial performance of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in relation to non-commercial goals. We focus on enterprises operating in the production of electricity sector in the EU countries and analyse their profitability conditioning on the level of electricity prices. We reveal that SOEs underperform as compared to their privately owned counterparts when they operate in those markets that have lower prices. This suggests that their profitability is likely to be substantially affected by pursuing goals other than profit-maximisation - providing crucial products and services at affordable prices - and emphasises a need to consider the non-commercial objectives of SOEs in the empirical research.

本研究考虑了与非商业目标相关的国有企业 (SOE) 的财务表现。我们关注欧盟国家电力生产企业，并分析其盈利能力对电价水平的影响。我们发现，与私营企业相比，国有企业在价格较低的市场中运营时表现不佳。这表明，它们的盈利能力可能会受到追求利润最大化以外的目标（以可承受的价格提供关键产品和服务）的重大影响，并强调需要在实证研究中考虑国有企业的非商业目标。