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on Transition Economics |
| By: | Zeljko Bogetic (The World Bank); Arye Hillman (Bar-Ilan University) |
| Abstract: | The note documents and discusses the modalities and consequences of the phenomenon of siphoning profits of state enterprises for private uses by state enteprise managers and insiders in Bulgaria during the period of early transition. |
| Keywords: | privatizing, privatization, state enteprprises, transition, Bulgaria |
| JEL: | D6 D7 H O P D1 D4 |
| Date: | 2005–10–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwppe:0510010&r=tra |
| By: | UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre |
| Abstract: | This new Innocenti Insight looks at how children with disabilities and their families fare in the rapidly changing environment of this wide region, since transition in the early 1980’s. It builds upon the significant body of research and policy reflections accrued at the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre (IRC) with the support of national statistical offices in the 27 countries of the region. UNICEF IRC has tracked and explored the impact on children and their families of economic and social changes in the region since transition began. This report draws upon three new pieces of research that include data, a qualitative survey and first-person interviews. The results highlight the legacies of the past, the momentum for change and areas where action is further needed. Institutionalisation, segregation and discrimination are still prominent features of the environment in which children with disabilities live across the region. |
| Keywords: | Central Europe; Eastern Europe; Russia; |
| JEL: | I12 |
| Date: | 2005 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucf:innins:innins05/20&r=tra |
| By: | Kiyoshi Urakami (Urakami Asia Management Research) |
| Abstract: | Electronics products originating either from the U.S.A. or Europe have experienced tremendous shifts to the Asian countries such as Japan, Korea, Taiwan and China. This paper examines the recent development of Chinafs electronics industry where a significant degree of foreign direct investment has enhanced the industrial accumulation. Based on the survey on the IT industry (personal computer, mobile phone and semiconductor) in China, business status in both Chinese and Japanese companies will be analyzed and future strategic directions for Japanese firms in the gAsian Ageh will be discussed. |
| Keywords: | the gAsian Ageh, originated from the U.S.A., business models, gMao, Gong, Jih method, the Asian talents, multilateral collaboration |
| JEL: | F1 F2 |
| Date: | 2005–09–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpit:0509012&r=tra |
| By: | Oldrich Kyn (Boston University); Jiri Slama (Osteuropa Institut, Muenchen); Vladimir Benacek (Charles University, Prague); Karel Kouba (Charles University, Prague); Pavel Pelikan (Institute for Economic Development, Stockholm,) |
| Abstract: | This is in support of the governement program of transformation from the Soviet-type economy, to the free market economy in Czechoslovakia after the fall of Communism. The basic lines of the government program, that was outlined by Vaclav Klaus, are defended against the leftis criticism that favored either market socialism or the so called 'Third Way'. On the other hand the statement sais that 'the current transformation strategy has several weaknesses....it is apparent that the Government realizes some of these but, under political pressure, continues in the wrong direction.' Among the weaknesses the following have serious negative implications: (1) insufficient attention to the development of small and medium enterprise; (2)'two years after the velvet revolution in the whole of Czechoslovakia, small privatization created only about one tenth of the desirable number of small private enterprises.' (3)'the prohibition of secondary market in privatization vouchers.' (4)'a timid attitude of politicians, Governments, and Parliaments toward foreign capital.' (5) ' the lack of support to the development of banking, tax, and legal institutions. ' The statement was supported by 14 representatives of the economic profession. |
| Keywords: | Socialism, Market Socialism, Soviet-type economy, transition, Central Planning, Fall of Communism, Third Way, Vaclav Klaus, Strategy of transition, Voucher Privatization, Foreign Capital, |
| JEL: | O P |
| Date: | 2005–10–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpdc:0510005&r=tra |
| By: | Zeljko Bogetic (The World Bank); Arye Hillman (Bar-Ilan University) |
| Abstract: | Meeting government revenue needs without inhibiting private sector development is a key challenge of tax policy during the transition from the socialist system. The paper explores issues in the design of tax bases and tax structures in the transition and argues that transition economies would need to adopt a lower and simpler tax structure than the ones prevailing in developed Western market economies. |
| Keywords: | tax reform, tax policy, tax bases, tax structure, transition, Bulgaria |
| JEL: | D6 D7 H D1 D4 F1 F2 O P |
| Date: | 2005–10–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwppe:0510009&r=tra |
| By: | Hans Fehr; Sabine Jokisch; Laurence J. Kotlikoff |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a dynamic, life-cycle, general equilibrium model to study the interdependent demographic, fiscal, and economic transition paths of China, Japan, the U.S., and the EU. Each of these countries/regions is entering a period of rapid and significant aging requiring major fiscal adjustments. In previous studies that excluded China we predicted that tax hikes needed to pay benefits along the developed world's demographic transition would lead to capital shortage, reducing real wages per unit of human capital. Adding China to the model dramatically alters this prediction. Even though China is aging rapidly, its saving behavior, growth rate, and fiscal policies are very different from those of developed countries. If this continues to be the case, the model's long run looks much brighter. China eventually becomes the world's saver and, thereby, the developed world's savoir with respect to its long-run supply of capital and long-run general equilibrium prospects. And, rather than seeing the real wage per unit of human capital fall, the West and Japan see it rise by one fifth by 2030 and by three fifths by 2100. These wage increases are over and above those associated with technical progress. |
| JEL: | E2 E4 H2 H3 H5 H6 J1 |
| Date: | 2005–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11668&r=tra |
| By: | Oldrich Kyn (Boston University) |
| Abstract: | Presented at the Conference about Transition to a Market Economy in Baltic States, in Bergen, Norway, 1994. The paper gives an overview of diverse views on three basic questions: 1) Why did Communism collapse? 2)Why the transition to the Market Economy has been so difficult? and 3)Why some countries did much better than the other? |
| Keywords: | Transition to Market, Collapse of Communism, Strategy of transition, von Mises, Hayek, Ellman, Kolodko, Klaus, Sik, Third Way, Intriligator, Pelikan, Nuti, Roemer, Mygind, AAge, Gylfason |
| JEL: | O P |
| Date: | 2005–09–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpdc:0509027&r=tra |
| By: | Oldrich Kyn (Boston University); Jiri Slama (Osteuropa Institut, Muenchen) |
| Abstract: | This is a brief but critical survey of the life and accomplishments of the Czech economist Ota Sik. He joint Communist Youth organization already before the WWII. During the war, he was in the Mauthausen concentration camp, together with the future secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party and president of Czechoslovakia Antonin Novotny. That helped him to get some prestigeous position in the Communist Party soon after the war. First he was quite orthodox Marxian economist, but after he was appointed as the Director of the Economic Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, he started to be critical of the Stalinist system and eventually became a head of the movement for the economic reform of 1960's. After the Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 he emmigrated from Czechoslovakia and became a professor of economics in Switzerland. There he was more and more critical of the Soviet version of centrally planned socialism, but never fully accepted a free-market capitalism. As a result he advocated the 'Third Way' social and economic system. |
| Keywords: | Ota Sik, Third Way, Economic Reform, Market Socialism, Marxism, Critique of Orthodox Marxian Economics. |
| JEL: | O P |
| Date: | 2005–09–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpdc:0509025&r=tra |
| By: | Zeljko Bogetic (The World Bank) |
| Abstract: | The paper measures economic loss from the problem of inadequate collateral in Bulgaria and proposes solutions consisting of creation of security interests, perfection, and enforcement. |
| Keywords: | collateral, finance, access to credit, investment, Bulgaria |
| JEL: | G D6 D5 D7 H O P |
| Date: | 2005–10–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpfi:0510004&r=tra |
| By: | Oldrich Kyn (Boston University) |
| Abstract: | The paper starts with a very brief overview of changes in the Czechoslovak economic system after the WWII and especially after the Communist coup d'etat of 1948. There were quite visible socialist features in the post WWII developments, but before 1948 they were more of the West European type and the full-fledged Soviet-type command economy was introduce only after 1948. But the Soviet-type system did not fit the industrially developed country and created serious problems already in the middle 50's. The first economic reform of 1958 aimed for some improvements of the Soviet-type system, but not for any substantial change of the system itself. Less than ten years later the much more radical reform started. It aimed for a return to the market economy, but of the socialist and not capitalist character. The economic reform was also accompanied by significant changes in the social and political system that aimed to restore democracy. The whole economic and political reform process went already so far that it could have been stopped only by the brutal invasion of the Soviet army in 1968. The paper continues by describing the main features of the economic reform, that is changes in the organizational structure of the economy, changes in the role and methods of planning, changes that were supposed to lead from central fixing of all prices to the step by step freeing of prices to the market forces. It continues with the proposed changes in the wage determination and with the completely changed role of the 'success indicators'. In analyzing the social, political and economic background of the reform, the main attention is concentrated on the strategy of reform that is on timing, extent, speed and sequencing of reform measures. Finally the social forces behind the reform are analyzed. |
| Keywords: | Market Socialism, Comand Economy, Economic Reform, Strategy of Economic Reform, Czechoslovakia, Economic Reform of 1960's, Success Indicatores, Mixed Economy, Nationalization, Economic Overcentralization, Decentralization of the Economy, Workers' Councils, Guided Market, |
| JEL: | O P |
| Date: | 2005–10–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpdc:0510002&r=tra |
| By: | Zeljko Bogetic (The World Bank); Fareed Hassan |
| Abstract: | The paper uses the 1992 household survey for Bulgaria to show poor revenue performance of the income tax structure prevailing in 1992, which did not take into account the underlying distribution of income. The paper shows that Bulgaria can benefit from a much lower and simpler income tax rate structure, which will be superior on revenue and distributional grounds. Subsequently in the 1990s, Bulgaria implemented an income tax reform similar to the one advocated in this paper. |
| Keywords: | Income tax, tax reform, tax potential tax rate, tax base, income distribution, Bulgaria, transition |
| JEL: | D6 D7 H D1 D2 D3 D4 O P |
| Date: | 2005–10–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwppe:0510003&r=tra |
| By: | Zavkidjon Zavkiev |
| Abstract: | The paper documents constructing a 2001 social accounting matrix for Tajikistan in order to develop a model of the country. As necessary and reliable statistics are difficult to obtain for compiling a social accounting matrix, alternative techniques and approaches have been used to extend, create and calculate the data set. A consistent and balanced 2001 social accounting matrix has been achieved using Kuroda's Method. The constructed 2001 social accounting matrix consists of 74 accounts with 27 commodities accounts, 2 factors of production, 3 institutions, 11 tax accounts, 1 non-tax payments account, 1 subsidies account, 1 capital account and 1 rest of the world account. As construction of a social accounting matrix for Tajikistan has not yet received attention in the literature this paper will fill that gap. |
| JEL: | C60 C67 C81 |
| Date: | 2005–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pas:camaaa:2005-20&r=tra |
| By: | Oldrich Kyn (Boston University) |
| Abstract: | This paper attempts estimation of the model of the Soviet price determination. Model consists of price equations for five sectors of the Soviet economy, and it is intended to be a part of a larger econometric model of the Soviet economy. Four different cost-plus price formulae were estimated. That included labor value prices and two channel prices. In one of the variants a “capital charge” was included into prices in the post reform years. Considering the shortness of time series relatively poor quality of data and the fact, that the Soviet centralized price determination is generally regarded to be quite arbitrary, almost all the regressions gave surprisingly good results. |
| Keywords: | Econometric Model, Price Model, Input-output prices, Soviet price determination |
| JEL: | O P |
| Date: | 2005–10–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpdc:0510003&r=tra |
| By: | Oldrich Kyn (Boston University) |
| Abstract: | An article published in Czechoslovakia just before the Soviet invasion of 1968, which stopped the progress of the economic reform aiming to transform the centrally planned command economy into a kind of market socialism. The article was acknowledging that the Marxian economics have no satisfactory answer to von Mises' claim, that the socialist economy cannot work, if it removes the possibility of 'economic calculation' that requires the operation of the free market system. |
| Keywords: | Central planning, Command economy, Market socialism, Economic Calculation, von Mises, Czechoslovakia, Marxism, |
| JEL: | O P |
| Date: | 2005–09–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpdc:0509028&r=tra |