This paper provides the first comparative analysis of different types of publicly owned banks operating in China between 1997 and 2008. Using principal component analysis and Granger-causality tests, this study shows that China's state-owned commercial banks and rural credit cooperatives did not...

An extensive program of economic liberalization reforms, even when it generates positive outcomes, does not automatically generate support for further reforms. Societies respond with strong support only after experiencing the effects of reversing these reforms (i.e. corruption, inequality of...

Research on the effects of positional concerns on individuals' attitudes and behavior in certain policy-relevant areas is lacking. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between positional concerns, charitable giving and social capital. We use data from the 'Caucasus Barometer' survey...

Public discontent with Mr. Lukashenko's authoritarian rule had been piling up for years and came to the surface after the fraudulent presidential election held in August 2020. At present the country is in a political stalemate as the official election results are challenged by a large part of...

This paper analyzes empirically whether individuals' decisions to start an own business can be influenced via television (TV). To identify its effect, we utilize exogenous regional variation in the availability of TV that conveyed images conducive to entrepreneurship and the notion that...

The paper deals with the problems of diverging developmental trajectories of former Socialist economies of the Central and South-Eastern European countries as well as of the former USSR republics. The purpose is exploring the developmental trends of three groups of economies - ECE, Balkans and...

China's politicians like to emphasise that they are building a socialist market economy based on the ideology of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Unlike other post-communist transitions to capitalism, China's radical economic transformations during the neo-liberal era did not generate a...

This paper traces the links between post-socialist transformations and the degrowth movement. Based on a series of workshops entitled "Degrowth Enthusiasm and the Eastern Blues" that we organised in recent years, this paper focuses on the following questions: what can we learn from the...

Thirty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it is rather clear what transition policies have worked. Almost all the post-communist countries have become market economies and have achieved macroeconomic stability. Privatization was economically necessary, and its economic outcomes have...

This paper analyzes the economic foundations of a non-democratic political regime, where the ruling bureaucracy captures rents through collective control over state property and job assignment. The model developed here yields the equilibrium in the 'political labor market,' where the ruling...