This paper looks at the progress in transition and the geographic diversification of trade, focusing on two issues--the degree of trade openness and trade integration--for a sample of countries in transition. It concludes that about half of the group of countries sampled are becoming as open as...

The economy of the Mediterranean region countries - which in the present study include Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, as well as Israel and Turkey - experienced a period of strong and dynamic economic development in the late 1970s and early 1980s. But since the 1980s...

This paper reviews a selection of studies on privatization experiences in transition countries. Empirical studies almost invariably show privatized enterprises outperform state enterprises. Moreover, the literature identifies de novo firms as being clearly the best performers, followed by...

A decade ago, with the breakup of the Soviet Union and the start of market-oriented reforms in many former socialist economies of Central and Eastern Europe, the prospect of privatizing inefficient state-owned companies figured prominently in both popular and academic writings. As the headline...