The authors explain why in the Former Soviet Union (FSU) - especially Russia - unemployment has remained low and employment in state and privatized firms has remained high, while at the same time the informal or unofficial economy has grown swiftly. They trace this development to a combination...

One challenge in transition economies has been to avoid being caught between overrapid restructuring (harmful to the private sector) and gradual change (can undermine robust private sector emergence). Empirical evidence suggests thatin most of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union,...

The informal economy has burgeoned in many transition economies but particularly in those of the Former Soviet Union. While this variation has commonly been related to the prevalent tax regimes and the degree of transparency in the legal and commercial system, the causality is far from obvious...

The past 15 months have seen the beginning of structural change in Russia but a failure of the economy to stabilize. The balance sheet, conclude the authors suggests that a return to centralized control remain almost impossible, but the dencentralization that has occurred contain many...

The authors analyze changes in the Russian labor market in 1992. They focus on the path of wages and employment in a context of partial price liberalization and considerable ambiguity about government and central bank policy. Under the former Soviet economy, the firm was the bedrock of the...

Registered unemployment in Russia is now 2 percent; surveys indicate a true rate of between 5 and 6 percent. Until now, flow in and out of unemployment have been quite large, with duration low. This may be changing as the ease with which workers are matched to jobs declines -- in part because of...

The authors surveyed 41 firms in and around Moscow in the last two weeks of November 1992 to get an empirical handle on how firms are responding to the changing economic environment. They found the following conclusions. There were large negative (supply and demand) shocks to output for a...

The authors evaluate the effect of various community level infrastructure rehabilitation projects undertaken in rural Georgia on household well-being. Their analysis is based on combining household and community level survey data. The authors'empirical approach uses the panel structure of the...