It seems natural to attribute to wage rigidity (stemming from highly distortionary labor policies) the over-valuation of the CFA (Communaute Financiere Africaine) franc after the negative external shocks of the 1980s. Using a variety of data sources, the author assesses the actual rigidity of...

As socialist countries move toward market systems, fiscal policy is an important part of their reform agenda. First, they need to reorient public spending to focus more on the provision of"public"goods. Second, they need to adopt more selective, predictable, and nondiscretionary means to finance...

Basing their report on repeat visits in late 1992 to 75 large state-owned manufacturing enterprises (which had been earlier surveyed in mid-1991), the authors present optimistic new evidence about the transformation of state-owned enterprises in Poland. This evidence shows state-owned...

Economists have stressed that the efficiency costs of taxation are not the obvious costs to taxpayers of handing over payments to the government. Instead, the efficiency costs stem from the efforts of taxpayers to avoid paying money to the government, whether it is consuming less of the taxed...

The authors describe the main changes in the Hungarian labor market since 1989. They focus especially on changes in behavior in state and privatized firms, since the shedding and restructuring of labor are at the heart of the transition. They describe five types of firms: 1) state firms (often...

The authors examine the process of economic transformation in Mongolia, a huge, isolated, sparsely populated country. After identifying factors that led to formulation of a radical adjustment program in such an isolated country, they focus on Mongolia's innovative voucher privatization scheme,...

In a number of middle-income developing countries, the severe inflationary crises of the 1980s coincided with political liberalization and an expansion of the arena of distributive politics. This wave of democratization raises questions that have recurred throughout the post-World War II period....

Survey results in Poland indicate that hard budgets and import comeption can spur state firms to adjust even when privatization lags behind. As they examine the underpinning of Polish reform, the authors address the key question of why managers instigated such adjustment. They examine how...

Developing countries are well advised to adopt appropriate tariff and tax policies. An ideal scheme of such policies would include the following : 1) export taxes should be set on the basis of the long run elasticity of foreign demand in the case of commodities in which the country has market...

Privatization has been a popular strategy for improving efficiency in both market and transition economies. The literature on privatization includes broad discussions of pricing techniques but overlooks tax issues. In reality, a state-owned company loses its privilege of paying no taxes once it...