We have conducted the first survey on management practices in transition countries. We found that Central Asian transition countries, such as Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, have on average very poor management practices. Their average scores are below emerging countries such as Brazil, China and...

We test under what circumstances boards discipline managers and whether such interventions improve performance. We exploit exogenous variation due to the staggered adoption of corporate governance laws in formerly Communist countries coupled with detailed ‘hard’ information about the...

We examine the case of the Czech Republic, which has been frequently cited as one of the most successful cases of transition economies in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Despite the costs related to the break-up of Czechoslovakia in late 1992 and 1993, the immediate consequences were quickly...

Drawing on the recent literature on economic institutions and the origins of economic development, we offer a political economy explanation of why institution building has varied so much across transition economies. We identify dependence on natural resources and the historical experience of...

This Paper examines the importance of agglomeration economies and institutions vis-à-vis initial conditions and factor endowments in explaining the locational choice of foreign investors. Using a unique panel data set for 25 transition economies between 1990-98, we find that the main...

The standard argument says that in the presence of positive spillovers foreign direct investment should be promoted and subsidized. In contrast, this Paper claims that the very existence of such spillovers may require temporarily restricting and taxing inward FDI. Our argument in favour of...

We analyse the choice of exchange rate regimes of the 25 transition economies in Europe and the CIS after 1990. The empirical results show that the traditional Optimum Currency Area considerations provide relevant guidance for the exchange rate regime choices in these countries. Moreover,...