This paper presents evidence suggesting that the relationship between income and economic structure is shifting over time, with countries across the income distribution uniformly increasing the share of labor in service sectors and an increasingly less stark relationship between manufacturing...

This paper investigates the drivers of growth and prosperity in a group of eleven European countries -- Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, and Slovakia (the EU11). Since the EU11 began the transformation process, this group of...

A void in the literature on the business environment is how it evolves over time. Focusing on China during its crucial two decades of transition (from the early 1990s to the early 2010s), this paper documents how the country's business environment and the characteristics of entrepreneurs...

The author analyzes regional labor market disparities in transition by presenting some data and summarizing existing literature. He finds that large and persistent regional labor market disparities developed in virtually all transition countries and that there is some evidence of polarization....

The challenge for labor market policy in the transition economies has been to redress the sharp drops in employment and rises in unemployment in a way that fosters the creation of productive jobs. The authors first document the magnitude and productivity of job and worker reallocation. Then they...

Expectations of future socioeconomic mobility are an important determinant of cur- rent policy preferences. But how may these expectations be formed? Using Life in Transition survey data for a large set of transition economies and several Western European countries, this paper examines the link...

Ecuador is one of the least diversified countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, depending heavily on oil and agriculture. This policy paper examines how services and innovation can play a role in transforming the Ecuadorian economy from one based on natural resources to one based on...

The paper analyzes the design of simplified small business tax regimes in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and the impact of such regimes on small business tax compliance. Although many approaches for tax simplification exist, a general trend in the region is to offer small businesses the option...

Wage inequality decreased significantly in the Russian Federation over the 2000s. The economic expansion experienced throughout the decade led to an improvement in social indicators, with a large reduction in poverty rates and an increase in higher education. In this context, wage inequality...

Morocco has set an ambitious target of supplying 42 percent of electricity through renewable sources, 14 percent each through hydro, wind, and solar, by 2020. To analyze the economic and environmental implications of implementing this target, this study uses a dynamic computable general...