The literature on economics of transition has suggested a number of scenarios to explain unemployment and labor reallocation in Eastern Europe. However, it has recently been argued that these so-called Optimal Speed of Transition (OST) studies do not account for many stylized facts concerning...

Why do workers change occupations? This paper investigates occupational mobility and its determinants following a large unexpected shock (communism's collapse in 1989.) Our calculations show that from 1989 to 1995 between 35 and 50 percent of Estonian workers changed occupations (classified at...

Gross job and worker flows in Russian industry are studied using panel data from a recent survey of 530 firms selected through national probability sampling. The data permit an examination of several important measurement issues - including the timing and definition of employment, the roles of...

Why do workers change occupations? This paper investigates occupational mobility and its determinants following a large unexpected shock (communism's collapse in 1989.) Our calculations show that from 1989 to 1995 between 35 and 50 percent of Estonian workers changed occupations (classified at...

Transition has involved major job destruction and creation. This paper examines the skill content of these changes using a detailed three country firm survey. It shows that transition has exerted a strong bias against unskilled labour who have lost employment disproportionately. Moreover, job...

Gross job and worker flows in Russian industry are studied using panel data from a recent survey of 530 firms selected through national probability sampling. The data permit an examination of several important measurement issues; including the timing and definition of employment, the roles of...

The transition from centrally planned to market economy entails a massive process of occupational change that has been largely neglected in the literature. This paper fills this void by providing a detailed description of this process and by investigating its determinants and consequences. Using...

In 2022, the labor market saw an ambiguous situation. On one side, in 2022 it completely recovered after the coronacrisis: the level of unemployment fell below the pre-crisis values and wages kept growing in real terms. On the other side, as far back as the beginning of 2022, the Russian economy...

The collective model of labour supply opened the household "black box" and allowed for individual treatment of partners in couples. However, the literature on labour supply has so far largely ignored a broader issue with special relevance to transition and developing countries - the distinction...