We examine the evolution of industrial output in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Romania over the period 1989-1995 in terms of product trade orientation prior to the transition process, some products traded in a market economy while others traded in the artificial market of the Soviet Bloc. We...

Most post-communist economies are characterized by an initial collapse in aggregate output. Blanchard and Kremer (1997) and Roland and Verdier (1997) have recently modelled supply side distortions, disorganization in the links of production, that can lead to a short-term output contraction after...

We model job reallocation and unemployment as outcomes jointly determined by the structure of inherited social capital within a two-sector Optimal Speed of Transition model. Treating regions of Poland as independent labour markets, the socio-economic inheritance of regions is found to be a...

A simple model of wage setting and restructuring predicts that the average wage level in a regional labour market in Poland, among other factors, will be negatively related to the unemployment rate and positively related to the degree of regional restructuring. As in Blanchflower and Oswald...