The collapse of communism in East Germany took place alongside unification with its democratic neighbour, West Germany. This made the East German experience of the ‘transition’ - from the planned to the free-market economy - unique among that of the post-socialist states. On the one hand,...

Social Monitor 2002 reviews recent socio-economic developments in the 27 countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States. It contains three articles: Social trends in transition: an update on trends in a range of topics including income and poverty, fertility,...

This paper compares people’s attitudes to inequality at the end of the 1990s the qualities they perceive are needed to get ahead, the role of government and rewards for employment in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and Western countries. Data (from the 1999 International Social Survey...

'I giovani nelle società in trasformazione' analizza le esperienze della 'generazione della transizione', i 68 milioni di giovani tra i 15 e i 24 anni di età dell'Europa centrale e orientale e della CSI. Essendo la prima generazione a terminare gli studi, cercare lavoro e fondare una famiglia...

A growing and deepening divide has opened up between countries where economic development has “taken off” and those caught in a vicious cycle of institutional backwardness and macroeconomic instability. This “Great Divide” is visible in almost every measure of economic performance, such...

The majority of enterprises in China are controlled by local governments at the provincial, city, county, township and village levels. We study the effect of regional decentralization on soft budget constraints in these enterprises. We show that fiscal competition under (foreign) capital...

China's economic transition has reached a stage where the past experimental approach is no longer sufficient. Future policy reforms need to be carried out in a holistic rather than a piecemeal manner. This paper analyzes the reforms of two related institutions in China: the household...

This study addresses the effects of economic, demographic and institutional factors on land allocation between forestry and other uses. A panel data set from Hainan Island in China and a generalized least squares estimation method, allowing individual effects for counties, are applied. The...

Each of the four countries analyzed in this study has gone through a transition period since the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990’s. Each has tried different strategies to change their economies and each has different results. The purpose of this paper is to explore and compare the...