This study of how privatization and stabilization (hard budget constraints) affect enterprise behavior shows that privatized firms consistently outperform state enterprises in productivity growth. Total factor productivity improves in privatized firms, where there is also less overemployment...

With the extension of its competence for social policy legislation in the Maastricht and Amsterdam treaties, the EU has adopted a significantly new social dimension in the past ten years. According to the Copenhagen criteria, the CEEC candidate countries have to adopt the former via the acquis...