This paper uses the only representative sample of the Russian Federation, the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey, to estimate the returns to education in this ex-communist country. This is one of the first studies to tackle this classic issue in labor economics with the realistic expectation...

Transition to market economy in European soviet socialist countries was not expected even in late 1980s. Beliefs gravitated around the building of a "socialism with human face" - "glasnost", "perestroika" etc., but not around building of market economy. Views changed slowly and political steps...

This paper examines current macroeconomic evidence on the characteristics and magnitude of structural change in Poland during the reform era. The analysis is based on a comparison of two social accounting matrices (SAMs) compiled for 1987 and 1993, three years either side of the introduction of...

Hard currency, and high wages may not explain the slow response of the East German economy to the opportunities of western capitalism. The success of the East German transition model may lie in those sectors that pay the highest wages. This paper shows that on a more detailed manufacturing...

Economic self-interest and social considerations are the key determinants of public support for market reforms in transition countries. However, political strategies that rely mainly on public support for pushing through economic reforms have limited relevance if the prevailing institutional...

This paper addresses whether the initial declines in the manufacturing and real wages in transition economies were anything unexpected to justify policy reversal, and whether the "often-recommended"foreign aid would have helped them curb these declines in any significant way. It answers these...