The authors of this paper set up a simple inflation model to analyze the transmission and short-run dynamics of inflation in partially reformed socialist economies. The model has features derived from market economies with few producers and sticky prices. It also tries to capture some attributes...

This paper emphasizes the fiscal underpinnings of the inflationary process and those particular dynamics when a dual price system is present. In particular, it explores the links between price controls and decontrols and the government budget, mainly through the flow of subsidies to either...

The authors compare the implementation of two apparently similar stabilization programs by two reforming socialist countries, launched two weeks apart (Dec. 1989 in Yugoslavia and Jan. 1990 in Poland). They investigate possible differences underlying the apparently similar programs that may...

This report focuses on the implications for wage bargaining and policy of inherited ownership arrangements and rules about wage setting during the transition of socialist economies. The authors discuss the strong tendency toward overemployment and wage drift in socialist systems. They focuses on...

The authors review recent developments in wages, employment, and unemployment in Poland and discuss some of the main risks Poland faces in sustaining its stabilization effort. They find that: unemployment has increased dramatically with stabilization, but this increase cannot be said to reflect...

The authors try to distinguish between general and national features in explaining the impulse, transmission channels, and path of output decline in Hungary and Poland. It is clear that output losses are massively concentrated in the socialized industrial sectors, but they identify significant...

The dominant hypothesis in the literature that studies conflict is that poverty is the main cause of civil wars. The authors instead analyze the effect of institutions on civil war, controlling for income per capita. In their set up, institutions are endogenous and colonial origins affect civil...

As many East Asian countries plunged into economic decline, the structure of concentrated ownership and associated corporate governance, along with weak corporate performance, have been blamed for the crisis. There is little empirical evidence, however, of the nature of ownership structures in...

Weaknesses in the corporate sector have increasingly been cited as important factors in financial crises in both emerging markets and industrial countries. Analysts have pointed to weak corporate performance and risky financing patterns as major causes of the East Asian financial crisis. And...

The authors investigate the activities of the Bulgarian competition office, the Commission for the Protection of Competition, for the years 1991-95. They provide descriptive statistics on the industry incidence of investigations, the types of behavior investigated, and the frequency with which...