This study discusses the evolution of personal wealth in transition economies. While data availability is still a problem, the available indirect evidence suggests privatization has resulted in an increase in personal wealth but also in personal wealth inequality, especially in the countries...

The chapter discusses the political economy of transition from plan to market. We start with the political economy before transition when powerful vested interests delayed necessary reforms thus leading to the bankruptcy of the communist regimes. We then move to the political economy of early...

Using newly available data, we re-evaluate the impact of transition from plan to market in former communist countries on objective and subjective well-being. We find clear evidence of the high social cost of early transition reforms: cohorts born around the start of transition are shorter than...

The theme of this paper is the microeconomics of economic growth in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Newly Independent States (NIS) over the period 1950-2000. The key structural change in this region is the end of the socialist regime in 1989 and 1992, and the subsequent attempt at...

Railways restructuring takes place under very different circumstances and with very different goals in Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, and Russia. Observed improvements in productivity associated with vertical access and vertical separation in Western Europe are not certain to be...