
60 UNU-WIDER articles, publications, projects, experts...
Filter by...
Working Paper
Decentralized Socialism and Macroeconomic StabilityUsing a survey of 300 state-owned enterprises (SOEs), we argue that the acceleration of inflation in China after 1984 was caused by the decentralization reforms in the state sector. These reforms allowed the SOEs to realize their innate tendencies to...
Working Paper
The Informal Sector During Crisis and TransitionOne of the most notable phenomena during economic transition is the shrinkage of the public sector and expansion of the not working population, simultaneously with the expansion of both the formal and informal private sectors. We address the related...
Working Paper
Viet NamIn analyzing Viet Nam's recent economic adjustments, this paper attempts to distinguish events and policies that are properly assigned to the transition effort (defined as the process of increasing the market determination of economic outcomes) and...
Working Paper
Underdevelopment, Transition and Reconstruction in Sub-Saharan AfricaReconstructing Africa's war damaged economies is an urgent task. This is especially so in a group of countries - Angola, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, and Mozambique - which must also complete their economic and political transition from state...
Working Paper
New Light on China’s Rural ElitesThis paper analyses political elites, economic elites, hybrid elite households and non-elite households in rural China using household data for 1995 and 2002. We seek to understand the determinants of belonging to each of the three elite categories...
Working Paper
Mozambique’s Elite – Finding its Way in a Globalized World and Returning to Old Development ModelsWhat makes elites developmental instead of predatory? We argue that Mozambique’s elite was developmental at independence 35 years ago. With pressure and encouragement from international forces, it became predatory. It has now partly returned to its...
Working Paper
The Long-Run Weight of Communism or the Weight of Long-Run History?This study provides evidence that culture understood as values and beliefs moves very slowly. Despite massive institutional change, values and beliefs in transition countries have not changed much over the last 20 years. Evidence suggests that...
Working Paper
Into the VoidTwenty years after the fall of the iron curtain—which for decades had separated East from West—most countries of Central and Eastern Europe are now members of the European Union; some have even adopted the euro. Nonetheless, these countries have also...
Working Paper
The New Grand Bourgeoisie under Post-CommunismIn the former socialist redistributive economies, the transition to market economy and the conversion to private ownership followed different trajectories. The paper offers an overview on how a new class of grand bourgeoisie was formed in three...
Working Paper
Twenty Years Later and the Socialist Heritage is still KickingOnly recently, 20 years after transition to a market system, has Russia regained a similar production level it had achieved on the eve of transition in 1991. This may sound surprising, given its low productivity under central planning which dropped...