The purpose of this paper is to analyse the economic implications of the bankruptcy procedures in Western market economies with a view to draw appropriate lessons for the transitional economies of Central and Eastern Europe. In Section II, we shall discuss the bankruptcy procedures in four major...

This paper estimates revenue and expenditure pro-cyclicality with respect to output and domestic absorption in new member states of the European Union and Croatia to assess whether these countries used the boom years of 2003-07 to create sufficient fiscal space. The current crisis has found many...

This paper presents empirical evidence on the impact of competition on firm productivity. Using firm-level observations from the World Bank Enterprise Survey database, we find a positive and robust causal relationship between our proxies for competition and our measures of productivity. We also...

We reexamine the well-publicized claim that "rapid mass privatisation [of state-owned enterprises] . . . was a crucial determinant of differences in adult mortality trends in postcommunist countries" (Stuckler, King and McKee, 2009). Our analysis shows that the estimated correlation of...

This paper analyses the growth effects of capital formation, exports and FDI as major drivers of economic development in Eastern Europe. The fundamental innovations are identified by empirically and theoretically motivated short- and long-run restrictions in structural cointegrated vector...

This paper analyzes the process of power utility re-regulation in Eastern Europe and the CIS during the decade of systemic transformation (1990-1999); in particular, it explores reasons why early attempts to introduce competition-oriented reform models have not succeeded. We discuss advantages...

Traditional monetary and economic convergence in accordance with the Optimal Currency Areas model has a number of limitations. Above all, it fails to assess the state of formal and informal monetary institutions. Adequate for an industrial society, it does not address the change to a globalising...

János Kornai, a distinguished Hungarian economist, began his adult life as an ardent believer in socialism and then became a critic of the communist political and economic system. He lost family members in the Holocaust, contributed to the ideological preparation for the 1956 Hungarian...

In their earlier report, Reform in Eastern Europe, the WIDER group assessed the main building blocks of a successful transition in Eastern Europe: stabilization, price liberalization, privatization, and restructuring. For the last three years this group of leading economists has been heavily...