Privatization in Central and Eastern Europe

For many but not all industries, privatization increases efficiency. I think this is true in many central and eastern European countries.

This is a no brainer.

The majority of privatisations have been carried out effectively with proper auctions and subsequent price regulation.

Only after several years of depression.

As a non-expert I cannot answer that is related to oligarchies, corruption and the end of the cold war.

The answer would be less obvious if applied only to Western Europe

While productivity has increased almost surely, production may actually have dropped significantly, as industry was largely dismantled.

I have no knowledge in this area.

During transition in those economies, we also saw productivity gains for state-owned firms but gains for privatized firms were much larger.
-see background information here

Productivity has increased, though in Russia and other countries the distributional consequences have been regressive

This is not only in line with what economic theory predicts, but also consistent with much evidence.
-see background information here
-see background information here

Even in East Germany only a few firms were viable at world-market prices at the end of communism (Akerlof et al, BPEA, 1990)

governments are not good at running businesses, private owners know better how to increase productivity

Gains have come from pro-market reforms more generally, but privatization was a pre-condition.

Agree but moving from state-sponsored monopolies to badly-regulated private sector monopolies does not do much for the average consumer.

With rare exceptions, firms were highly inefficient beforehand. In some countries, private firms remain uncompetitive because of corruption.