Why are socially beneficial reforms not implemented? One simple answer to this question (which has received little attention in the literature) is that this may be caused by generalized uncertainty about the effectiveness of reforms. If agents are unsure about whether a proposed reform will...

This paper introduces intergenerational equity into the analysis of transitions to a market economy. Analyzing Social Security privatization, we find that payroll tax labor market distortions, rather than capital tax capital market distortions, are the major source of any efficiency gain from a...

This paper analyzes China’s and Vietnam’s performance in reducing under-five child mortality in a comparative perspective. Under the market socialist model, both countries achieved very high rates of GDP growth, but income distribution and the provision of key public services deteriorated....

This paper focuses on the systematic investigation of the influence of the quasi-experimental projects on possible changes in inequality in access to higher education in Russia. While intuition points toward a positive effect of introduction of the standardized tests and educational vouchers on...

The collapse of former communist regime in Central and Eastern Europe opened the transition period from centrally planned to market oriented economies. Thus, the exploration of economic systems in the special situation of transition has become an interesting research topic. The exposition plan...

The Eastern European countries have been trying to move to a market economy for the last six years. Most advice has been to go immediately to a fully capitalist market economy, but the difficulty of this route has become clear. No country has succeeded in making this great leap, and the attempt...

We analyse how the choice of reform speed and economic growth affect one another. We estimate a system of three equations where economic growth, economic reform and FDI are jointly determined. New reforms affect economic growth negatively, whereas the level of past reform leads to higher growth...

The process of economic reforms launched in 1978, and gradually extended until current days, has catapulted China into a stellar growth trajectory that has proven highly resilient. In this paper, we estimate the effect on economic development of China’s industrial policy, in particular, the...