A general consensus in the transition economies literature links the existence of enterprise restructuring with the pace of the transition process and the potential for economic growth. The existing literature is less clear, however, about whether the lack of economic growth is caused by the...

In this paper, we examine net investment during the early stages of transition using micro data on the population of medium and large industrial firms in the Czech Republic during the 1992-95 period. We examine the relevance of alternative models of investment and test if investment behavior...

We examine the role of organized labor in the restructuring experience of two coal mining regions in the 1990’s: Ostrava in the Czech Republic and the Jiu Valley region in Romania. Under similar external circumstances, the Ostrava region undertook gradual restructuring from early on whereas in...

Strategic restructuring of firms through investment is key to a transition from plan to market. Using data on industrial firms in the Czech Republic during 1992-98, we find that (a) foreign owned companies invest the most and cooperatives the least, (b) private firms do not invest more than...

In 1994 China began a profound reform of its state-owned enterprises. We first describe and characterize this progress in two areas: privatization of small state-owned enterprises at the county level and mass layoffs of excess state workers at the city level. Local governments have initiated...

Using data from the China Urban Labor Survey conducted in five large Chinese cities at year end 2001, we quantify the nature and magnitude of shocks to employment and worker benefits during the period of economic structuring from 1996 to 2001, and evaluate the extent to which adversely affected...

Eastern German privatization and restructuring of firms is seen as a special case because of the peculiarities of reunification and the large transfers from western Germany to finance it. Although this is right, the government faced the same problems as other countries in transition when...

This paper examines the empirical evidence on the impact of reforms in the financial sector in Romania in the period 1993-1995. The methodological framework of the paper is based on a theoretical model of intertemporal bank lending in a transition country with uncertain prospects for...

A central debate about the transformation of post-communists countries is how the process of institution building impacts firm restructuring and creation. This debate has largely been dominated by approaches that emphasize either the depoliticization of institutional designs or the determining...