This paper reports new and unique firm-level survey evidence to investigate the microeconomic nature of the growth process and structural change in three transition countries, Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary. In particular we investigate gross job creation and destruction in newly established...

The paper analyzes the evolution of relative wages using individual wage data, and the contribution of skills to productivity using firm-level information from Hungary, 1986-99. Its main conclusion is that skills obsolescence was, and still is, an important aspect of post-communist transition....

In spite of ongoing dramatic changes in labor market structure, we present statistical evidence that transitional economies display rather low worker flows across sectors and occupations. Such low mobility can be explained by low returns to job changes as well as by market segmentation in the...