Transition has involved major job destruction and creation. This paper examines the skill content of these changes using a detailed three country firm survey. It shows that transition has exerted a strong bias against unskilled labour that has lost employment disproportionately. The skill...

We look at the differences in regional unemployment rates in six major transition countries and their persistence over time. We analyse the role various adjustment mechanisms play. While movement out of the labour force seems to be one consequence in many regions with high relative unemployment,...

Soviet era firms provided generous social benefits, including health and child care. Despite recent cuts, firm survey data show that benefits have remained a major component of total compensation. With benefits largely firm-specific and firms dominated by insiders, continuing attachment of...

We use new firm-level data to examine the effects of firm divestitures and privatization on corporate performance in a rapidly emerging market economy. Unlike the existing literature, we control for accompanying ownership changes and the fact that divestitures and ownership are potentially...

In this paper we use two very large panel datasets from Poland, 1988-90 and Czechoslovakia, 1990-1992 to explore the dynamics of employment and wage determination at the enterprise level in the early years of transition. The study is intended to assist in building a coherent picture of...