This paper summarizes the evolution of labor markets and labor market institutions and policies in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe as well as of Central Asia over the last two decades. The main focus is on the evolution of labor market institutions, which are among candidate...

During the 20th century, Marxism and non-egalitarian or classical liberalism debated the properties of economic reasoning, that is, the way economic institutions value multiple ends. This debate produced an implicit consensus between market socialists and non-egalitarian liberals about...

The rapid expansion in Russia of the virtual economy, a system characterized by a network of barter, has recently received much attention. This article analyzes the origin, the nature, efficiency and welfare implication, of the virtual economy. While the system is criticized by many economists...

The rapid expansion in Russia of the virtual economy, a system characterized by a network of barter, has recently received much attention. This article analyzes the origin, the nature, efficiency and welfare implication, of the virtual economy. While the system is criticized by many economists...

In the last fifty years, many aspects of socialism have been rolled back around the world. Indeed, in the 1990s, following the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, it seemed as if classical liberal ideas had triumphed. But this did not happen by accident. The role of free-market...

In the last decade, nearly a dozen countries, once part of the USSR, have undertaken the transition to market economies. In some cases, the new economic systems that have developed cannot be squeezed into any theoretically generalized models of capitalism. The main reason these systems evade...

Transition has entailed the introduction of policies to stimulate product market competition, to establish effective corporate governance and to harden enterprise budget constraints. How do these policies interact; Are they substitute policy instruments or does one policy reinforce the effect of...

Milton Friedman (1962) famously argued there can be no freedom of speech where the government owns the printing presses. According to Friedman, political freedom presupposes economic freedom. Less well-known are F. A. Hayek's and John Jewkes's illustrations of the same principle, both drawing...