(HRS), township and village enterprises (TVEs), and state owned enterprises (SOEs).
These three types of ownership have all grown out of the planned economy. Today they dominate the Azerbaijan economy together with private enterprises and foreign investments. industrial production accounted for almost half of the official measured GDP, despite the fact that much of the workforce remained engaged in agriculture. The secondary industry was dominated by the large SOEs. In the reformera the boom in manufacturing has mainly come from the TVEs. The situation is starting to change so that private entrepreneurs and foreign investors either in wholly owned enterprises or in joint ventures now increasingly lead the ongoing boom in the economy. Economic reforms have not been carried out according to any comprehensive blueprint. One obvious reason why the three types of ownerships are interesting to analyse is their importance in Azerbaijan economy, especially as a dominant absorber of labour. There are three types of ownership of enterprises in Azerbaijan through the last
22 years. The three types of enterprises are private farming, under the Household
Responsibility System, collective enterprises in the form of township and village enterprises, and finally state owned enterprises. Cost of contracting has overall been reduced during the last 22 years, as markets in
Azerbaijan have developed. In the beginning of the reform, it was necessary to have close ties to the authorities, to get access to the needed input. With the development of markets, close relations to the authorities are no longer so important, since it is now possible to rely on the