Pension systems and, as ratios of GDP, pension expenditures show large variation among countries. This variation reflects, above all, demographic factors and differences in the level of insurance protection, the latter tending to increase with the level of development. The focus of this paper is...

This paper discusses the key hypotheses which Joseph Stiglitz proposed, in his wide-ranging critique of the 'Washington Consensus', with regard to transition reforms and economic polices in China and Russia. The primary purpose is to evaluate the Stiglitz perspective in the light of empirical...

The paper discusses the reasons for the observed variation in the sequencing, speed and content of reform policies, in the 1990s, among 25 post-socialist countries of Central Europe and the Former Soviet Union. It argues that these differences, while considerable in the early 1990s, did not...

This paper considers the impact on sectoral outputs and employments of rapid and large changes in relative prices, such as those which occurred in transition economies during the 1990s. A simple general equilibrium model is developed in which price changes are induced by a tax reform and...