Despite the longstanding insider trading debate, there is little empirical research on insider trading laws, especially in a comparative context. The article attempts to fill that gap. I find that countries with more prohibitive insider trading laws have more diffuse equity ownership, more...

Kosovo is a war-torn corner of the former Yugoslavia, where a civil war between ethnic Albanians and ethnic Serbs raged during most of the 1990s. We examine the incidence and depth of poverty and some of its correlates in post-conflict Kosovo using the Living Standards Measurement Survey.

Drawing on the Upper-Echelons Perspective and Resource-Based View of the firm this paper explores effects of human-based resources of entrepreneurs, viz., social capital, human capital and entrepreneurial versatility, on firm performance in the context of a large transition economy - the Russian...

The impact of FDI on total factor productivity in Hungary during the 1990s' is assessed with a large enterprise panel. Foreign equity is associated with higher productivity levels and has a substantial, positive spillover effect on aggregate TFP growth. However, this benefit is significant only...

This article critiques neoliberal transition theory from a neoclassical sociological perspective. Neoliberals argue that postcommunist economic failure is the result of inadequate adherence to neoliberal precepts. This paper argues that the neoliberal policy package of “Shock Therapy”...

In this paper we investigate the export participation of Slovene firms. We first show that sunk costs are an important factor for explaining the export behavior of Slovene firms. Next we show that when the absorption power of the exporting market declines, firms still trade with their...

One of the major tasks facing a transition economy is to create the competitive environment of a properly functioning market economy. This paper attempts to analyze the relationship of market structure, market imperfections and corporate performance by mark-up pricing. There is clear evidence...

To ascertain the prevalence of soft budgets and to find causes of softness, we surveyed 251 privatized Mongolian enterprises, asking whether state aid was expected when financial difficulties arose. One quarter of the enterprises expected such soft-budget aid, a large proportion of which have...

We develop a theoretical framework and provide empirical estimates of the extent of several forms of restructuring in 130 privatized firms in a model transition economy (Slovenia) during the 1996-1998 period. In view of the institutional developments in the transition economies, we divide...

In the process of catch-up growth the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland have experienced a transition to the production of higher-quality goods. We incorporate this effect in a theoretical model of exchange rates and econometrically estimate its impact on equilibrium real exchange rates. We...