<title>Abstract</title> Railways restructuring takes place under very different circumstances and with very different goals in Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, and Russia. There are some improvements in productivity associated with the reforms in the European Union (among others access to...

We introduce financial constraints in a theoretical analysis of illegal immigration. Intermediaries finance the migration costs of wealth-constrained migrants, who enter temporary servitude contracts to repay the debt. These debt/labor contracts are easier to enforce in the illegal than in the...

Privatization is one of the major economic phenomena in recent economic history. This paper summarizes empirical research on the effect of privatization on the performance of privatized firms and on the society. The extant evidence from privatizations in many developed and developing shows that...

We study an incomplete contract model where both contracting parties can invest, and the investments have both self- and cross effects. We analyze the performance of non-contingent contracts, message games, option contracts and property rights. We find that the first best is implemented if (i)...

External shocks may cause a decline in the productivity of fixed capital in certain regions of an economy. Exogenous obstacles to migration make it hard for workers in those regions to reallocate to more prosperous regions. In addition, firms may devise “attachment” strategies to keep...

We develop a model of two-stage cumulative research and development (R&D), in which one research unit (RU) with an innovative idea bargains to license its nonverifiable interim knowledge exclusively to one of two competing development units (DUs) via one of two alternative modes: an open sale...

The paper shows how time considerations, especially those concerning contract duration, affect incomplete contract theory. Time is not only a dimension along which the relationship unfolds, but also a continuous verifiable variable that can be included in contracts. We consider a bilateral trade...

Using a unique dataset, we describe the degree of ownership concentration in Russian economy and its role in shaping economic and political institutions in Russia. In particular, we find that Russian "oligarchs" do control a substantial part of the economy. While the relative weight of their...

Commodity resources offer significant opportunities for development. In the long run, however, the performance of commodity - rich countries tends to fall short of expectations, as commodity rents induce macroeconomic volatility and undermine incentives to improve institutions. The resource -...

Despite strong growth performance in transition economies in the last decade, residents of transition countries report abnormally low levels of life satisfaction. Using data from the World Values Survey and other sources, we study various explanations of this phenomenon. First, we document that...