The paper examines existing results on the effects of the speed of liberalization on growth performance during transition. We highlight methodological problems in these studies, noting the existence of simultaneous causation and the use of variables that are not valid measures of the phenomena...

How do firms respond to new institutions? This question is addressed by analyzing the determinants of firms' strategies on transactional governance, using data from a Romanian survey. Strategy variables are regressed on factors that should determine behavior according to agency and...

Mongolia's mass privatization program was implanted in a country that lacked the very basic institutions of capitalism. This paper examines the effects of competition and ownership on the efficiency of the newly privatized enterprises, using a representative sample of enterprises and controlling...

A methodology is presented for transaction-cost measurement using reports from businesses. In Romania, transaction costs related to buying and selling are more than 20% of value added. The estimates correlate significantly with variables suggested by theory, indicating validity

We examine the effect of relationship-specific investment on contract complexity, which has broad implications because complex contracts and vertical integration have similar causal origins. It is usually assumed that transaction cost economics (TCE) implies that relationship-specific investment...

The English version of this paper is at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=878672 Chinese Abstract:...

To what extent do firms use trust, law, and third-parties to ensure fulfillment of agreements to transact? How do they combine these mechanisms to form transactional governance structures? How do answers to these questions vary across countries? Generating the relevant data requires constructing...

Prepared for the "Handbook Of New Institutional Economics." Focusing on firm behavior, the paper examines the collapse of socialist institutions, the building of capitalist institutions, changing firm boundaries, transactional governance, corporate governance, and use of the legal system. The...

At present, there is no generally accepted accounting of the institutional strengths and weaknesses of the transition economies. The first goal of the paper is to fill this gap by assessing current levels of institutional development. The second is to examine which types of institutional...

The paper proposes a methodology to obtain evidence on the relative importance of different mechanisms for supporting agreements. A survey question posed to company directors summarizes key aspects of mechanisms and asks for judgments on use. In contrast to existing approaches, the data covers...