The legal protection of property rights is increasingly viewed as a crucial, if not the crucial, condition for economic growth and pro-poor development. Empirical support is generally based on cross-national correlations between measures of secure property rights and good development outcomes in...

The transition from socialism to capitalism has spawned a large literature on comparative policy reforms. While many sociologists using qualitative data have concluded that neo-liberal reforms led to negative outcomes, a large body of cross-national literature, mostly from economics and...

This paper evaluates the role of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the transition from socialism to capitalism. Fixed-effects panel regressions indicate that FDI and domestic investment have an equal effect on growth in the first year of investment, but over time FDI is associated with greater...

Why did the transitions from state socialism to capitalism result in improved growth in some countries but significant economic declines in others? Three main arguments have been advanced: (1) the most successful countries rapidly implemented privatization, liberalization, and stabilization...

During the transition to capitalism, postcommunist countries have experienced unprecedented mortality crises, although there has been considerable variation within — and between — countries and regions. Much of this variation remains unexplained, although alcohol and psychological stress...