Over the past two decades decentralisation of government has been widely promoted by international development organisations. In former socialist economies, where governance had been extremely centralised, decentralisation seemed a way to build economic efficiency and improve public sector...

The neoliberal Washington Consensus dominated global policy making over the 1980s. Fundamental to this consensus were three theoretical and ideological tenets: that privatization and markets are a natural order and that this order is best achieved if the state economic role is limited. I argue...

In this paper, I reexamine the finding that the collectivization of agriculture in Eastern Europe resulted in its feminization. Using Bulgarian data, I find that, despite an increase in women's formal labor force participation, women remained concentrated in the least-mechanized, low-wage jobs....

The inattention to environmental problems in East European agriculture reflects assumptions that the problems result from central planning. We argue that the focus on economic systems undermines policy support for environmental sustainability in transforming economies. We examine the link...

<title>Abstract</title> This study examines women's declining use of maternal healthcare services in post-socialist Tajikistan. Using data from the 2003 and 2007 Tajikistan Living Standards Surveys (TLSS), the findings support previous evidence that a woman's use of prenatal and delivery care depends on her...

Central Asia has low labor force participation rates for women, despite high levels of poverty in the non-oil producing countries. Female labor force participation is related to competing uses for women’s time, especially in a context of poor infrastructure and limited availability of...

The economic liberalisation which has occurred in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) over the past 15 years has aimed at integrating markets into the global economy and realising the benefits of competition. This article examines a three-way pooled sample of annual data for 13 industry sectors in...