The transition from plan to market has hinged on the development of a dynamic private sector that would serve as the engine of growth and employment creation. This paper examines the link between the availability of skilled workers and the creation of new private firms. Using a dynamic search...

Traditionally, shocks to total factor productivity (TFP) are considered exogenous and the employment response depends on their effect on aggregate demand. We raise the possibility that in response to labor supply shocks firms adjust efficiency, rendering TFP endogenous to firms’ production...

This paper empirically assesses the role of structural and institutional reforms in driving productivity growth across countries at different stages of development, using a distance-to-frontier framework. It gauges whether particular policies and reforms matter more for increasing productivity...

This paper investigates the main determinants of income inequality in transition countries during the period 1990-2018. To this end, we address a major methodological challenge that lies at the core of the cross-country literature on income inequality: the potential endogeneity of income growth,...

This paper analyzes the relationship between fiscal adjustment and real GDP growth in a panel of 26 transition economies during 1992-2001. Unlike most previous studies using cross-country regressions, the paper finds a positive and statistically significant relationship between fiscal adjustment...

This paper examines how the on-the-job search of workers in the state sector who are seeking jobs in the private sector affects private sector employment, the unemployment level, and the unemployment duration in the transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe. The main finding is that...

This paper studies interactions between labor market institutions and unemployment dynamics in transition economies. It presents a dynamic matching model in which state sector firms endogenously shed labor and private job creation takes time. Two main conclusions arises. First, higher...

What are the relative roles of macroeconomic variables, structural policies, and initial conditions in explaining the time path of output in transition and the large observed differences in output performance across transition economies? Using a sample of 26 countries, this paper follows a...

The current destination of Central and Eastern European countries—explicitly for some, implicitly for all—is Brussels. The concept of the distance from Brussels is multi-dimensional. One simple measure, not without theoretical and empirical justification, is physical distance. This paper’s...