Why is inflation, 15 years after transition started, still considerably higher in Romania than in the eight EU member states (EU-8) that joined in May 2004? Panel estimation based on ten central and eastern European countries allows us to decompose the inflation differential between Romania and...

Transformation erfordert die Veränderungen von Institutionen und die Öffnung von Finanzmärkten. Allerdings gelten zehn Jahre nach Beginn der Transformation Institutionen und die Funktionsweise der Finanzmärkte noch immer als Problemfelder der Reformen in Mittel- und Osteuropa. Damit werden...

Transition has involved major job destruction and creation. This paper examines the skill content of these changes using a detailed three country firm survey. It shows that transition has exerted a strong bias against unskilled labour who have lost employment disproportionately. Moreover, job...

We look at the differences in regional unemployment rates in six major transition countries and their persistence over time. We analyse the role various adjustment mechanisms play. While movement out of the labour force seems to be one consequence in many regions with high relative unemployment,...

Although the development of a new private sector is generally considered crucial to economic transition, there has been rather little empirical research on the determinants of startup firm growth. This paper uses panel data techniques to analyze a survey of 297 new small enterprises in Romania...

We construct and analyze a unique database with 1992-99 information on privatization transactions and labor productivity for the entire surviving population of initially state-owned industrial corporations in Romania. The data permit us to describe the post-privatization ownership structure and...

We use micro data from the Romanian Labor Force Survey to analyze the effect of the restructuring process on the employment dynamics of urban residents in the Romanian labor market. We analyze the way personal characteristics influence individuals? ability to adjust to labor market...

The countries concerned in this paper are either in the process of negotiations for EU accession (Bulgaria and Romania) or under a review process for opening such negotiations (Turkey). Therefore we will take the EU-requirements concerning the labour market as a benchmark against which the...

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the international competitiveness of the Turkish economy and the structure of specialisation in foreign trade in comparison with the five EU candidate countries Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Rumania, Poland and the EU/15. This research work...