This paper examines the changing incentives for the efficient management of firms in Eastern Europe. It contrasts the internal constitution of the firm (its governance and reward structures) with the various constraints imposed on the firm's activities by external conditions in capital, labour...

WTO members are starting to consider whether and how to develop multilateral disciplines on competition policies. These discussions are taking place in the absence of concerted efforts to compile comparable information on the conditions of competition existing on member country markets. We argue...

The inefficiency of Soviet-type economies results from their monopolized production structure, which makes soft budget constraints almost inevitable, as enterprises have bargaining power and must face expropriative tax rates for macroeconomic stability. Systemic reform aims to improve...

A key feature of Soviet-type economies is the excessive concentration of production and the skewed size distribution of enterprises. This is the root cause of the `soft budget constraint' and a natural outcome of the political economy of these countries. Given entrenched political support for a...

This paper explores options for governments of Central and East European countries to increase the sensitivity of competition law enforcement to trade and investment policy, thereby supporting a liberal trade policy stance. The competition laws of these countries tend to resemble European Union...

This paper assesses the coherence between industrial policy, competition policy and trade policy in the European Union (EU). This assessment is undertaken from the perspective of the optimal deployment of economic policies as prescribed by economic analysis and takes into consideration the legal...

Do countries with lower policy-induced barriers to international trade grow faster, once other relevant country characteristics are controlled for? There exists a large empirical literature providing an affirmative answer to this question. We argue that methodological problems with the empirical...