The economic history of Argentina presents one of the most dramatic examples of divergence in the modern era. What happened and why? This paper reviews the wide range of competing explanations in the literature and argues that, setting aside deeper social and political determinants, the various...

Privatization is shown to increase national economic output in a two-sector full-employment general-equilibrium model by enhancing efficiency as if a relative price distortion were being removed through price reform, trade liberalization, or stabilization. The static output gain from...

We use a sample of 147 countries to investigate the link between democracy and reforms. Democracy may be conducive to reform, because politicians have the incentive to embrace growth-enhancing reforms to win elections. On the other hand, authoritarian regimes do not have to worry as much about...

The enterprise sectors of Eastern Europe are undergoing fundamental reform. This article evaluates alternative forms of corporate restructuring. It emphasizes differences in the sequence in which reforms are undertaken in different countries. In some countries, restructuring is being undertaken...

We develop entrepreneurship and institutional theory to explain variation in different types of entrepreneurship across individuals and institutional contexts. Our framework generates hypotheses about the negative impact of higher levels of corruption, weaker property rights and especially...

This paper estimates the effects of the 1991 breakups of Czechoslovak state-owned enterprises (SOEs) on subsequent performance of the master enterprises and the spin-off units. The analysis is based on quarterly and annual data of Czechoslovak industrial enterprises. We estimate the performance...

Why is there delay in contests? In this Paper we follow and extend the line of reasoning of Carl von Clausewitz to explain delay. For a given contest technology, delay may occur if there is an asymmetry between defense and attack, if the expected change in relative strengths is moderate, and if...

This paper is about Nicky Kaldor and other economists contributions to economics.

It is most important to get the conceptual aspects of a problem clear, before starting any formal or statistical analysis. This the author has always tried to do.

We relate the phenomena of sluggish interregional labour reallocation and in-kind compensation in Russia to 'attachment' strategies of firms: Paying wages in non-monetary forms makes it hard for workers to raise the cash needed for quitting their region in order to find better jobs in more...