We analyze the timing, magnitude, and income dependence of pharmaceutical panic buying around the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Hungary. We use district-level monthly and daily administrative data on detailed categories of pharmaceutical purchases, merge them to income statistics, and...

Social networks may help individuals maintain their mental health. Most empirical work based on small-scale surveys finds that cohesive social networks are critical for mental well-being, while diverse networks are considered less important. Here, we link data on antidepressant use of 277,344...

This is a report about the fifth workshop from the seminar series of IIASA’s Economic Transition and Integration Project entitled “The Process of EU Accession: Preparation by Learning and Exchange”. The workshop was held in Bratislava on 7-9 February 2002. The first two sections summarize...

The article analyzes the requirement recently formulated by different parties of the accession process: the candidate countries should raise their wage level close to the average of the EU even before they join the union. The authors show that wage convergence, defined this way, has no...

The paper analyzes the experience of the Central and East European candidate countries with respect to major macro-level changes in the structure of their economy relevant for their catching up. More precisely, the production and utilization sides of the GDP, as well as the structure of...

This is a report about the fourth workshop from the seminar series of IIASA’s Economic Transition and Integration Project entitled “The Process of EU Accession: Preparation by Learning and Exchange”. The workshop was held in Prague in November, 2000. The first section summarizes recent...

Trade and capital flows between Russia and the rest of the world are now significant for both partners. The economic reforms introduced in Russia since 1991 have converted an autarkic, highly regulated economy into a relatively open one. The dramatic change followed from the abolition of central...

This series of enterprise case studies grew out from a 1995-1996 research project at IIASA. It acknowledged the importance of export development for the recovery of the economies of Central and Eastern Europe following their deep transformational recession in 1990-1994. The main goal was a...

This Working Paper is a summary of a workshop which was held at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria in 1992. Small scale privatization (SSP) of shops, restaurants and other consumer services has been accomplished in the first stage of the complex...

One of the most remarkable recent changes in the East European economies has been the rearrangement of their trade patterns in a few years. Two regional organizations were the focal points of the geographical shift: the CMEA which lost its dominant position, and the EC which had a magnetic...