Transition economies and the underlying processes that have occurred during the last four years in the eastern European countries are in the spotlight of leading economists. Unfortunately, the theory of economic transition can hardly explain these processes; even the intuition is often missing....

This study develops a dynamic model of bidding behavior to investigate the Czech voucher privatization process, which took place in two waves of bidding rounds, the first in 1992 and the second in 1994. It examines the voucher mechanism from the standpoint of investors and the pricing and...

This paper shows how to cope with a problem of model selection and simplification using the principle of coherence (Gabriel (1969): A procedure involving testing a set of models ought not accept a model while rejecting a more general model.) The mathematical lattice theory is used to define a...

Substantial understatement of the degree of quality improvement during transition, and, therefore, a substantial overstatement of inflation rates has resulted in a serious downward bias in estimates of the rate of growth of post-communist economies. The move to free markets has apparently...

Using surveys of the Czech Republic taken in 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006 we measure how the percentage of tax evaders evolved from 1995 until 2006. We find that at first evasion rose, leveled off, and then fell along a quadratic path, suggesting the existence of what we call an evasional Kuznets...

This study examines the responsiveness of trading volume to a firm's earnings announcements We find that the volume and earnings surprise information generated at the first earnings announcement within an industry help to explain the stock returns of the non-announcing firm. Specifically, it...

Using a large sample of European acquisitions, we find that acquired firms substantially close the gap between their actual and optimal leverage ratios. The bulk of this adjustment occurs quite rapidly – within a year of the acquisition. The typical over-levered firm adjusts its debt-to-assets...

We examine the persistence of corporate corruption for a sample of privately-held firms from 12 Central and Eastern European countries over the period 2001 to 2015. Creating a proxy for corporate corruption based on a firm's internal inefficiency, we find that corruption enhances a firm's...

The geographic distance between a household and financial institutions may constitute a significant obstacle to achieving the benefits of modern financial institutions. We measure the impact of distance-related access to microcredits in Uzbekistan. Residents living closer to microfinance...

We study the effects of corruption on firm efficiency using a unique dataset of private firms from 14 Central and Eastern European countries from 2000 to 2013. We find that an environment characterized by a high level of corruption has an adverse effect on firm efficiency. This effect is...