Sustainable small enterprise development in a Cuban transition economy

This article examines the status of small business development in Cuba through 1999, and evaluates the potential future of small enterprises in a Cuban transition to democracy and capitalism. In any transition to democracy and capitalism, small enterprise development is highly desirable, if not essential, for creating a growing and sustainable economy. We attempt to elucidate the complex issues that will shape the development of small enterprises in Cuba's eventual transition to a market economy, as well as outline the relevant experiences of other economies in similar situations and provide suggestions for future internal and external policymakers working to further small business interests in Cuba. Special emphasis is placed on the obstacles grounded in human behaviors that are incompatible with a globally competitive market economy. J. Antonio Villamill, former U.S. undersecretary of commerce and director of Florida's Office of Tourism, Trade and Economic Development, is president of Washington Economics Group, Inc.     

Privatisation in Developing Countries: A Review of the Evidence and the Policy Lessons

Privatisation is widely promoted as a means of improving economic performance in developing countries. However, the policy remains controversial and the relative roles of ownership and other structural changes, such as competition and regulation, in promoting economic performance remain uncertain. This article reviews the main empirical evidence on the impact of privatisation on economic performance in developing economies. The evidence suggests that if privatisation is to improve performance over the longer term, it needs to be complemented by policies that promote competition and effective state regulation, and that privatisation works best in developing countries when it is integrated into a broader process of structural reform.     

Barriers to Efficiency and the Privatisation of Township-Village Enterprises

Qian (2000 Qian, Y. 2000. The process of China's market transition (1978–98): the evolutionary, historical, and comparative perspectives. Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, 156(1): 151–171. [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and others suggest that post-1994 tax and banking reforms in China, combined with the development of markets for allocating resources, influenced the economic performance of township-village enterprises (TVEs) and private enterprises (PEs). This paper uses Chinese provincial level data to search for evidence of advantages and/or disadvantages offered to TVEs and PEs before and after the 1994 reforms. We define a sectoral net income-based measure of overall efficiency and decompose the measure into components that highlight the existence of credit constraints, output target constraints and labour hiring constraints. The results offer empirical support for Qian and others explanation of why private enterprises eventually emerged as the dominant institution for allocating resources in post-1994 rural China.     

Production Efficiency and Beyond: Local Determinants in Russian Privatisation

This article analyses factors influencing rural households’ decisions to remain in collectives or separate from them during Russia’s post-socialist privatisation period in the 1990s. It argues that although decisions to remain in or separate from a collective were influenced by a number of factors, the dominant one was the households’ abilities to cope with independent production. These abilities were predetermined by the extent to which production was intensified in each collective. In Siberia less labour and capital intensive husbandry based on native herding that is well - adapted to the local environment, offered better chances of establishing viable economies, and thus greater incentives to split from a collective.     

Problems of political transition in Ukraine: leadership failure and democratic consolidation

Democratisation and consolidation of a political system encompass a range of complex challenges, for which effective leadership is pivotal. However, the skills that a leader requires to break through and introduce change are not necessarily the same as those needed to maintain stability. This article examines the case of Viktor Yushchenko as president of Ukraine following the Orange Revolution. The negotiated transfer of power from the previous semi-authoritarian regime rendered consolidation difficult by limiting opportunities for a complete break. Within the residual ‘grey area’, a number of actors continued to participate and create tension. The regime that emerged was characterised by political infighting and instability, leading to the defeat of candidates associated with the Orange Revolution in the 2010 presidential elections. This article argues that the inability to move towards a consolidated democratic political system was due to the failure of the transitional leader, rather than the political and institutional configuration.