The purpose of this note is to highlight certain facts about the sex ratio (the number of females per thousand males) of the population in some Indian states, especially those in the northeast of the country. The states in the northeast are ethnically, linguistically and culturally very distinct...

We use a rich personnel data set from a Russian firm for the years 1997 to 2002 to analyze how the financial crisis in 1998 and the resulting change in external labour market conditions affect the wages and the welfare of workers inside a firm. We provide evidence that large shocks to external...

This paper uses firm-level data from the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Surveys (BEEPS) to study the process of convergence of transition countries with developed market economies. The primary focus of the study is on competition and market structure, finance and the structure...

We use longitudinal methods and universal panel data on 30,000 initially state-owned manufacturing firms in four transition economies to estimate the impacts of privatization on employment and wages. The results in all four countries consistently reject job losses and they never imply large wage...

One of the most amazing 'events' of the last 15 plus years has been the complete transformation of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, their transition from communist rule and central planning to various forms of market-type economy. Ten of the countries have...

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the successor states have all been moving - albeit at different speeds and in different ways - towards some form of market-type economy. The transition process has been accompanied by major disruption of much existing production, and by large...

Middle East and North African (MENA) countries have traditionally anchored their currencies largely on the US dollar, but the creation of the euro means that there is now for the first time a real alternative numéraire and anchor available. This paper estimates the effect of a menu of exchange...

We analyze comprehensive manufacturing firm data to measure the contribution of inter-firm employment reallocation to aggregate productivity growth during the socialist and reform periods in six transition economies. Modifying a standard decomposition technique to better reflect the role of firm...

Why have economic reforms aimed at reducing the role of the state been successful in some cases but not others? Are reform failures the consequence of leviathan states that hinder private economic activity, or of weak states unable to implement policies effectively and provide a supportive...

Diversification, especially in the context of small, highly trade-dependent economies, has recently become quite a fashionable topic, and something that increasingly commonly forms part of the policy advice offered to low- and middle-income countries seeking to improve their economic conditions...