We use data from the 2006 round of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) to describe perceptions of Russian people about the transition process and the role of the state. We also study which groups of the population hold more positive and more negative views of transition. Overall,...

Social scientists studying the determinants of entrepreneurship have emphasized three distinct perspectives: the role of institutions, the role of social networks and the role of personal characteristics. We conduct a survey from five large developing and transition economies to better...

This paper reports first results from a survey of 404 middle-sized and large manufacturing firms from 40 Russian regions in April-June 2003. We examine the extent of social service and infrastructure provision by the firms and the firms’ assessment of the quality of public infrastructure and...

Despite the strong growth performance in transition countries in the last decade, residents of transition countries report abnormally low levels of life satisfaction. Using data from multiple sources including a recent survey in 28 post-communist countries, we study various explanations of this...

Does fiscal decentralization lead to more efficient governance, better public goods, and higher economic growth? This paper tests Riker’s theory (1964) that the results of fiscal decentralization depend on the level of countries’ political centralization. We analyze crosssection and panel...

We study the determinants of the decision to become an entrepreneur in Russia, China, and Brazil, using unique survey data at the individual level. We find that entrepreneurs have many common characteristics relative to non-entrepreneurs in all three countries. They are more likely to have...

We study the determinants of the decision to become an entrepreneur in 7 Russian cities. Using data on 400 entrepreneurs and 440 non-entrepreneurs, we find considerable variation in the proportion of entrepreneurs, ranging from 6% of adult population in Nizhny Novgorod, to 16% in Perm and 18% in...

In immature democracies, businessmen run for public office to gain direct control over policy, whereas in mature democracies they typically rely on other means of influence. We develop a simple model to show that businessmen run for office only when two conditions hold. First, as in many...

We report the results of a new survey on entrepreneurship in Brazil. In September 2006, we interviewed 400 entrepreneurs and 550 non-entrepreneurs of the same age, gender, education and location in 7 Brazilian cities. The data are used to test three competing hypotheses on entrepreneurship: the...

We study the nature of judicial bias in bankruptcy proceedings following the enactment of the 1998 bankruptcy law in Russia. The two main findings are as follows. First, regional political characteristics affected judicial decisions about the number and types of bankruptcy proceedings initiated...