Rental rate gives the opportunity cost of a machine, that is, it accounts for the opportunities forgone by using the machine or self-renting it instead of renting it out to someone else. While the traditional approach studies how the rate at which a machine can be rented depends on the market...

The paper explores the quality problem as a major challenge before transitional economies. It uses Akerlof’s model of misrepresented quality in an attempt to study it as the reason for market failure in the new democracies. The determinants of poor quality in the region of Eastern Europe are...