Across nine transition economies, it is the young, educated, English-speaking workers with thebest access to local telecommunications infrastructures that work with computers. Theseworkers earn about 25% more than do workers of comparable observable skills who do not usecomputers. Controlling...

We exploit the exogenous change in marginal tax rates created by the Russian flat tax reformof 2001 to identify the effect of taxes on labor supply of males and females. We apply theweighted difference-in-difference regression approach and instrumental variables to the laborsupply function...

This paper examines the effect of global transition to simpler, flatter income tax systems onthe size of the shadow economy. By offering a new estimation framework, the paper revivesthe traditional electricity consumption approach to measuring the shadow economy. Itovercomes the limitations of...

Using micro-level data, we examine the effects of Russia`s 2001 flat rate income tax reformon consumption, income, and tax evasion. We use the gap between household expendituresand reported earnings as a proxy for tax evasion with data from a household panel for 1998-2004. Utilizing...

We decompose by origin the sources of the variation in real aggregate output and aggregate price level in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. We find that a sizable fraction of the variation is attributable to external shocks, especially so for aggregate price level. We show that euroarea...

Paper addresses the recent initiatives of EU Lisbon Agenda to increase level of R&Dexpenses in EU Member States by studying firm-level panel data in most advanced transitioneconomy, Slovenia. Previous empirical literature – mainly cross-sectional – has tested thedemand-pull hypothesis and...

In this paper, we use 1991-2005 panel data on the unemployed, vacancies, inflow intounemployment, and outflow from unemployment in five former communist economies and inthe western part of Germany (a benchmark western economy) to examine the evolution ofunemployment together with that of inflows...

This paper provides a critical overview and a detailed research agenda for scholarsinterested in regional studies with a special focus on old and new European Union memberstates. The focus is on the microeconomic foundations of structural change and its spatiallyasymmetric impact on labour...

This paper explores the potential of microfinance in post-conflict economies, and speci-fically examines policy considerations for the case of Iraq. It presents important condi-tions of the post-conflict economy, and examines three critical requirements for suc-cessful microfinance operations,...

Since the 1980s the debate about economic convergence hasdominated empirical work about the dynamics of growth. Economichistorians have been attracted, in particular, by stories of clubconvergence. However, the analytical foundations of most of the work inthis area have rested on linear, or more...