We analyze the effect of ownership on post-privatization performance in a virtually complete population of medium and large firms privatized in a model large-scale privatization economy (Czech Republic). We find that concentrated foreign ownership improves economic performance, but domestic...

Income and consumption inequality increased in all transition economies, albeit to very different levels. Existing findings suggest that countries that were slow to undertake promarket reforms experienced the largest increase in inequality, with the notable exception of Belarus, one of the least...

We compare the social welfare generated by a domestic government in the two types of policy setups: a "commitment" regime in which the government sets its policy instrument before the strategic choice is made by the domestic firm and a "non-commitment" regime where the policy variable is set...

In the EU electricity industry, many Vertically Integrated Utilities (VIUs) have ownership both of electricity generators and of transmission, hence VIU-owned or allied generators often are bidders in auctions for VIU-owned transmission. In Van Koten (2006) I show that welfare suffers and the...

This paper studies a closed economy with a continuum of agents and moral hazard. Economic agents in the economy operate a stochastic production technology with capital and labor inputs in which the latter is private information. I characterize efficient allocations of capital, labor, and...

In this paper, we perform an in—depth investigation of relative merits of two adaptive learning algorithms with constant gain, Recursive Least Squares (RLS) and Stochastic Gradient (SG), using the Phelps model of monetary policy as a testing ground. The behavior of the two learning algorithms...

Coordination games with Pareto-ranked equilibria have attracted major theoretical attention over the past two decades. Two early path-breaking sets of experimental studies were widely interpreted as suggesting that coordination failure is a common phenomenon in the laboratory. We identify the...

The admission process into secondary schools in the Czech Republic involves high risk of ending up at an undesired school if failing to be admitted to one’s preferred school. Hence, the application decision is an important element of the process since individuals have to assess their chances...

We extend the scarce evidence on labor supply in post-transition countries by estimating the wage elasticity of labor force participation in the Czech Republic. Using the household income survey data of 2002, we find that a one-percent rise in the gross wage increases the probability of working...

This paper provides an explanation as to why software manufacturers from developed countries tolerate widespread copyright infringement in less developed countries and often even offer local versions of their products. In a simple two-period framework, I show that if network externalities are...