We examine the evolution of industrial output in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Romania over the period 1989-1995 in terms of product trade orientation prior to the transition process, some products traded in a market economy while others traded in the artificial market of the Soviet Bloc. We...

Most post-communist economies are characterized by an initial collapse in aggregate output. Blanchard and Kremer (1997) and Roland and Verdier (1997) have recently modelled supply side distortions, disorganization in the links of production, that can lead to a short-term output contraction after...

We model job reallocation and unemployment as outcomes jointly determined by the structure of inherited social capital within a two-sector Optimal Speed of Transition model. Treating regions of Poland as independent labour markets, the socio-economic inheritance of regions is found to be a...

In the early days of transition Poland hosted regional earning disparities. Low levels of worker and firm mobility allow us to threat regions as local labor markets. Wage behavior is modeled in regional labor markets as an outcome of the speed of transition examining employment restructuring in...

In this paper we estimate the impact of transition on earnings inequality using data across Polish regions 1994-1997. Our central result is that earnings inequality is higher in regions that are more advanced in restructuring (higher labour productivity/job reallocation rates), controlling for...

Many theoretical models of transition are driven by the assumption that economic decision making is subject to political constraints. In this paper we empirically test whether the winners and losers of economic reform determined voting behaviour in the first five national elections in the Czech...