We study the effect of former Communist party membership on paying bribes to public officials and motivations for bribery, 25 years after the fall of communist rule. Data come from a large representative survey, conducted in post-socialist countries in 2015/16. To deal with endogeneity, we...

I examine the incidence and determinants of the gender income gap in Kazakhstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Serbia, Tajikistan, and Ukraine using recent household data based on an identical survey instrument across countries. Four main results are established, using a range of estimators, including...

This paper looks at how individual preferences for the allocation of government spending change along the life cycle. Using the Life in Transition Survey II for 34 countries of Europe and Central Asia, we find that older individuals are less likely to support a rise in government outlays on...

The returns to schooling are estimated for 28 European and Central Asian countries using the Mincerian function. Our results show that while the public sector pays on average more than the private sector, the effect of education on earnings is stronger in the private sector. However, the returns...

This paper summarizes the micro‐level survey evidence from Central Asia generated and analyzed between 1991 and 2012. We provide an exhaustive overview over all accessible individual and household‐level surveys undertaken in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan ‐...

Transition to the market economy in ECA opened up a range of potential opportunities for young people. It has also raised a series of challenges. Youth unemployment and joblessness have emerged as serious problems with the potentially very high costs. Formal Education and Training systems have...

Using 2005 firm level data for 26 ECA countries, this paper estimates performance gaps between male- and female-owned businesses, while controlling for their location by industry and country. We find that female entrepreneurs have significantly smaller scale of operations (as measured by sales...

This paper investigates the economic returns to language skills and bilingualism. The analysis is staged in Kazakhstan, a multi-ethnic country with complex ethnic settlement patterns that has switched its official state language from Russian to Kazakh. Using two newly assembled data sets, we...

Several post-Soviet states have introduced policies to improve the relative economic, political or social position of formerly disadvantaged populations. Using one example of such policies – "Kazakhisation" in Kazakhstan – we investigate their impact on the comparative earnings of two...

This paper examines rates of return to schooling in Kazakhstan using OLS and instrumental variable (IV) methodologies. We use spouse's education and smoking as instruments. We find that spouse's education is a valid instrument and that conventional OLS estimates that assume the exogenous nature...