It has been shown that higher levels of subjective well-being lead to greater work productivity, better physical health and enhanced social skills. Because of these positive externalities, policymakers across the world should be interested in attracting and retaining happy and life-satisfied...

Identification of the entrepreneur's economic function has engaged economistsfor more than 200 years. In this paper we address the issue of entrepreneurship intwo distinct ways: a) as it has historically developed within the field of economicsand b) as it develops in the transitional context. In...

The rapid journey from central planning to EU (euro area) membership stress-tested the social learning processes of the Former Transition Economies (FTEs). The desire for a higher standard of living, to be anchored to the West, and to enter the EU, spurred major reform waves and led to the very...

We reexamine the recent, well-publicized claim that “rapid mass privatisation [of state-owned enterprises]…was a crucial determinant of differences in adult mortality trends in postcommunist countries” (Stuckler, King and McKee, 2009). Our analysis shows that the estimated correlation of...

The transitional economies of the Former Soviet Union (FSU) have enjoyed an extraordinary period of growth and poverty reduction between 2000 and 2007 and this occurred in concomitance with significant increases in private and public transfers to households. The paper assesses the relative...

The recent EU enlargements into Central and Eastern Europe and increased labor mobility within the Union provide a unique opportunity to evaluate the labor market effects of emigration. Outmigration has contributed to higher wages for stayers, as well as to lower unemployment in the source...

This paper evaluates the gender wage gap among wage workers along the wage distribution in Georgia between 2004 and 2011, based on the recentered influence function (RIF) decomposition approach developed in Firpo, Fortin, and Lemieux (2009). We find that the gender wage gap decreases along the...

This paper studies patterns of gross job creation and destruction in Bulgaria, Estonia and Romania. To this end a unique data set of more than 1600 Bulgarian, 350 Estonian and 3700 Romanian firms in various sectors and located in various regions is used. We find that gross job destruction...

Policy complementarities have often been overlooked in transition economies, leading to the exclusion or partial adoption of reforms. This paper examines the key determinants of successful transition strategies, and concludes that an approach exploiting complementary relationships and...