Since the beginning of transition in 1990 from a centrally planned to a market oriented economy, the performance of Poland's economy has been outstanding if we take GDP growth as our measure. It is not specific reforms that can explain this performance but the radical ("big bang") reforms at the...

This paper examines inequality patterns in the 1990s in Poland, Russia and Hungary. We consider three different definitions of income and analyse the contributions to inequality of their main components using LIS micro data. Inequality is measured using the Gini and Theil indices, which in turn...

Using large firm-level data sets from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary, we show that the wage behavior of firms changed considerably as these economies launched their transitions to a market system. We find evidence of worker sharing in their enterprise rents and losses at the...

In this paper, we present a comparative analysis of employment determination in four transition economies as they move from central planning to a market economy in the early 1990s. We use firm level panel data sets from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia to estimate dynamic...

We study worker turnover in a transition economy to investigate to what extent the length of time a worker has been employed by a firm shapes the turnover process. Using data from the Polish Labor Force Survey and The Russian Longitudinal Monitor Survey we compare the pattern of turnover with a...

This paper analyzes the evolution of inequality in Poland during the economic transition that began in 1989-90. Using micro data from the Household Budget Surveys, we find that, after a brief spike in 1989, income and consumption inequality actually declined to below pretransition levels during...

Inflation in Central and East European countries varied considerably over the transition phase, and econometric relationships between prices, money, wages and exchange rates are said to have been unstable during this period. In order to shed some light on the issue, this paper analyses some...

In 1991, the rate of inflation in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland was between 35% and 70%. At the end of 2001, it is below 8%. We setup a small structural macro model of these economies to explain the process of disinflation. Contrary to a widespread skepticism, which permeated a large...