The EU's post-Communist countries as well as the EU in general are participating in the implementation of the Lisbon Strategy which aims to create an economy of knowledge. The usage of catching up is extremely important in achieving this strategy's goals. Unfortunately, the EU's post-Communist...

This paper investigates the importance of institutions as a determinant of growth and foreign direct investment (FDI) in 25 transition countries for 1990-1998. It introduces some novel institutional measures, performs extensive sensitivity tests, and checks for reverse causation. Estimation...

This article investigates the relative impact of regional energy production on the energy voting choices of State Duma deputies between 1994 and 2003, controlling for other factors such as party affiliation, electoral mandate, committee membership and socio-demographic parameters. We apply...

In Romania, the communist regime promoted an official policy of gender equality for more than 40 years, providing equal access to education and employment, and restricting pay differentiation based on gender. After its fall in December 1989, the promotion of equal opportunities and treatment for...

Conventional wisdom suggests that the stocks of human capital were one of the few positive legacies from communism. However, if factories under communism were so inefficient, why would the education system not have been? Using the education production function approach and new data on...

This paper examines the development of Russian industry in comparison with that of Ukrainian industry during 1995–2004 in an effort to ascertain to what extent, if any, Russian manufacturing showed signs of succumbing to ‘Dutch disease’. Ukraine and Russia began the market transition with...

This paper sets out a framework to analyse the interdependence of reforms in different policy areas during the transition process. It identifies four broad policy blocks related to liberalisation, stabilisation, exit and entry. The transition process in Slovakia is a case study of the striking...

The paper provides an overview of the course of economic reform and the performance of the Russian economy since the early 1990s and an analysis of the structural reform challenges ahead. It assesses the contribution of institutional and structural reforms to economic performance over the...

The goal of this study is to reveal the long-term trajectory of Russian economic development and to make predictions for the future. The study starts with a much discussed question: why Russia did worse economically during transition than most other countries in Europe and Asia? It is argued...