Using a sample of 2,827 firms from 21 countries we examine whether insider trading laws achieve the primary objective for which they are introduced – protecting uninformed investors from private information-based trading. We find that when control is concentrated in the hands of a large...

The paper examines the relations between the architecture of an economy's financial system - its degree of market orientation - and economic performance in the real sector. We argue that the relative effectiveness of bank-based versus market-based financial systems depends on the strength of the...

This paper is concerned with the analysis of firm performance, measured as total factor productivity, using a panel of over 1200 Bulgarian and 200 Estonian firms. The main empirical conclusions are (i) higher Financial and competitive pressure improves firm performance in Bulgaria; (ii)...

Although the development of a new private sector is generally considered crucial to economic transition, there has been rather little empirical research on the determinants of startup firm growth. This paper uses panel data techniques to analyze a survey of 297 new small enterprises in Romania...

This paper studies the determinants of house prices in eight transition economies of central and eastern Europe (CEE) and 19 OECD countries. The main question addressed is whether the conventional fundamental determinants of house prices, such as GDP per capita, real interest rates, housing...

The main factors influencing the probability of bankruptcy are analyzed on Czech Republic 1993-1999 firm data. Basic models of the bankruptcy are compared: neoclassical, financial and corporate governance. The corporate governance hypothesis does not receive support in the ownership but the...

Chinese city-level data indicate that differences in growth rates are far more severe than indicated in previous studies which typically use data at higher levels of aggregation. We estimate growth equations using city-level data and find that the policy of awarding a special economic zone...

This paper provides an illustration of the changing tolerance for inequality in a context of radical political and economic transformation and rapid economic growth. We focus on the Polish experience of transition and explore self-declared attitudes of the citizens. Using monthly representative...