The paper investigates general properties of power indices, measuring the voting power in committees. Concepts of local and global monotonicity of power indices are introduced. Shapley-Shubik, Banzhaf-Coleman, and Holler-Packel indices are analyzed and it is proved that while Shapley-Shubik...

The paper describes Lithuanian monetary and exchange rate developments. Experiences of the other two Baltic states Estonia and Latvia have been analysed as well. New monetary and financial institutions introduced in all Baltic states faced several problems. One was how to maintain the...

The paper considers the 'embeddedness' of economic activities in the work of small-scale cross-border traders between the Central European 'buffer zone' countries of Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia and the countries further East. Shuttle trading has become a significant feature of...

We model the introduction of hard budget constraints in a transition economy. The model, set in continuous time, is designed to address the interaction between the hardening of such constraints and the speed of restructuring in the industrial sector. We emphasize the impact policy changes will...

This paper considers one aspect of social transitions in post-Communist Eastern Europe: that of attitudes to economic change. Although much has been written about economic and political transformation, little has been done in a systematic way with regard to the attitudes of the population to...

This paper attempts to analyze the causes of the inflationary developments in Albania in the years 1994-1997 with the help of econometric methods. We consider monetary and fiscal expansion, imported inflation, and direct demand pull as possible causes. Except for significant effects of direct...

During the 90s the increase in health spending which compared to the overall growth had taken place at a rather rapid pace experienced a worldwide slow-down. In relation to overall economic growth and the expansion of other countries' health care systems, Austria's system grew below average- a...

The role of unanticipated changes in money growth for aggregate fluctuations is reexamined using the methods of quantitative equilibrium business cycle theory. A stochastic growth model with money is constructed that has the feature, following Lucas (1972, 1975), that production and trade take...

Do competitive markets remove the impact of social norms and customs on market out-comes? Or are these social forces capable of exerting a persistent influence? Many economists seem to believe that social norms and customs have, if at all, only temporary effects in competitive markets. So far...

In an influential paper Mankiw, Romer, and Weil (1992) argue that the evidence on the international disparity in per-capita income levels and growth rates is consistent with a standard Solow model, once it has been augmented to include human capital as an accumulable factor. In a study on...