The paper provides an operational definition of the concept of globalisation and reviews the pro-globalisers' case for the worrld-wide spread of free market capitalism through the implementation of the 'Washington Consensus'. The pros and cons of the case for capital account liberalisation and...

Social capital is defined as the shared knowledge, trust, and culture, embodied in the structural forms of networks and other stable inter-agent relationships. Social capital has been shown to be more difficult to build than economic capital, and to have greater beneficial effects for community...

This paper focuses on ignored issues regarding the impact of trade reforms in transition economies. These economies are primarily characterized by a low quality of their products, large depreciations of their currencies, and a high degree of government intervention in economic activity. These...

We present a model of wage contract violation that implies a possibility of multiple equilibria in the level of arrears. Positive feedback arises because each employer's arrears affect the costs of late payment faced by other employers operating in the same labor market, resulting in a network...

We provide a model that explains the following empirical observations: i) private ownership is more efficient than public ownership, ii) privatizations are associated with increases in efficiency and iii) the increase in efficiency predates the privatization. The two key mechanisms explaining...

We analyze a model of wage delay in which strategic complementarity arises because each employer's costs of violating its contracts decrease with the arrears in its labor market. The model is estimated on panel data for workers and firms in Russia, facilitating identification through fixed...

We extend the benchmark model of Aghion and Blanchard (1994), assuming two segments of the emerging private sector that differ in workers' productivity. We look at the paths of employment, wages, taxes, labor costs and profits during and after the transition, up until the shock is fully...

We analyze a model of wage delay in which strategic complementarity arises because each employer’s costs of violating its contracts decrease with the arrears in its labor market. The model is estimated on panel data for workers and firms in Russia, facilitating identification through fixed...

Trade reforms in transition economies are analyzed in a model of trade and vertical product differentiation. We first show that trade liberalization in transition economies reduces the local firm s output and raises the prices of all variants. Second, we find that neither free trade nor the...

This paper focuses on ignored issues regarding the impact of trade reforms in transition economies. These economies are primarily characterized by a low quality of their products, large depreciations of their currencies, and a high degree of government intervention in economic activity. These...