Communist socialization and post-communist economic and political attitudes

We investigate the effect of individual exposure to communism on support for democracy and capitalism. We examine whether this effect varies across different types of communism, at different periods of people's lives, in different countries, and across different types of individuals. To do so, we propose a modified approach to solving the APC problem that relies on (a) survey data from multiple countries (b) historically defined cohorts and (c) variation in the time-periods related to these cohorts across countries. We provide a series of robustness tests for the method, and show that results are not very sensitive to panel structure. We conclude that generally communism had an indoctrinating effect, with more exposure to communism resulting in more opposition to democracy and capitalism.     

The logic of interdisciplinary studies

In this article, I argue that emerging economies are systematically becoming more susceptible to both currency and banking crises after financial liberalisation (FL). Using data for 27 emerging economies from 1973 to 1998, univariate and multivariate analyses indicate that the likelihood of currency crises and banking crises increase after FL. In particular, liberalisation allows more liquidity to enter an emerging economy, which finds its way into productive and speculative projects. What is common to both types of crises is a significant increase in speculative financing, thereby increasing the chance for borrower default. Thus, the outflow of international capital becomes more likely. The chance of a crisis occurring in response to changes in short-term loans is greater after FL than before. Similarly, the chance of a currency crisis occurring following a currency overvaluation is larger after FL than before. In comparison, the likelihood of a banking crisis occurring in response to an overvalued currency remains the same. Finally, the results show that the chance of a currency crisis declines over time, while the chance of a banking crisis increases after FL.     

Marketing in Emerging Market Economies

This paper presents a literature review on the marketing concepts and strategies applied in the emerging economies. The focus of the research was the stage of development and the application of marketing principles in emerging economies, with an emphasis in specific countries, cultures and industries concerned. Issues such as marketing research and its implementation, marketing opportunities, role of distribution channels and communications, marketing strategies and policies in different cultural contexts, marketing specifics compared to developed countries and marketing in specific industries, were reviewed. It was concluded that emerging markets represent a huge opportunity for local and multinational companies. It was also proved that the marketing in general in these countries remains underdeveloped compared to Western countries of established market economies. Despite the fact that emerging market economies represent group countries with same features in some sense, a specific country and industry approach as far as marketing concerns was suggested.     

Institutions and the stabilization of party systems in the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe

Most explanations of party system stability focus on the strength of mass-elite linkages. We highlight the role of institutions, focusing on how electoral rules and elected institutions, especially the presidency, impact elites' incentives to coordinate on a stable set of parties or to form new parties, thus affecting electoral volatility. Using Central and Eastern European elections data, we find that directly elected presidents increase volatility and that presidential power magnifies this effect. Absent a directly elected president, high district magnitude is associated with increased volatility, but district magnitude dampens the impact of an elected president on volatility; hence, our findings underscore the interactive impact of institutions on party systems. We also find evidence that bicameralism and concurrence of presidential and parliamentary elections decrease electoral volatility. Our model not only explains persistently high electoral volatility in Eastern Europe, but the extreme stability of Western European party systems.     

Political instability and economic growth: Evidence from two decades of transition in CEE

This paper examines the nexus between political instability and economic growth in 10 CEE countries in transition in the period 1990–2009. Our results support the contention that political instability defined as a propensity for government change had a negative impact on growth. On the other hand, there was no causality in the opposite direction. A sensitivity analysis based on the application of a few hundred different variants of the initial econometric model confirmed the abovementioned findings only in the case where major government changes were applied to the definition of political instability.     

A model of unbalanced sectorial growth with application to transition economies

This paper studies the implications of a dynamic general equilibrium model with three production sectors, which are agriculture, industry and services. Due to the assumption of increasing returns, our model has multiple equilibria. There are two stable equilibria: one, in which a country produces only agricultural goods and converges to a steady state, and the other, in which a country operates all three sectors and has positive unbalanced long-run growth with contracting agriculture and expanding industry and services. These predictions agree well with the real-world development experiences of rich and poor countries. In the context of our model, we also investigate the evolution of the sectorial composition in the transition countries and find that such countries move to the rich rather than to the poor world.

Where Size Matters: Agglomeration Economies of Illegal Drug Markets in Philadelphia

There is a debate over whether police attention focused on an illegal drug market causes dealers to spatially displace their activities “around the corner” therefore having no positive impact on the aggregate level of illegal drug sales in the city. The alternative perspective is that focused police attention lowers the rate of illegal drug sales in the city. Recent research in Jersey City, New Jersey has demonstrated that focused police attention does not simply move illegal drug dealing around the corner. The present analysis explains why this finding is likely to be common in other cities using the economic theory of “agglomeration economies.” Agglomeration economies illustrate that taking the largest and most profitable site from illegal drug dealers will make dealing in the surrounding neighborhoods less rather than more profitable and lead to a smaller marketplace overall. The empirical analysis focuses on Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.     

Economies of Scale in Municipal Administration. Empirical Analyses of Municipal Mergers

Economies of scale in municipal administration are an important argument in the discussion on municipal mergers. However, they are seldom studied empirically. It is suggested here to analyse advantages of scale by municipal mergers. This procedure has a favorable feature compared to previous cross‐section analyses, because the number of inhabitants appointed to an administration is immediately increased, whereas the conditions of production are largely unchanged. In an exploratory application for four municipal mergers, we find no evidence for increasing economies of scale. Compared to the level prior to the mergers, average current expenditure for the municipal administration increased more than in a control group of similar municipalities that did not merge.     

Foreign direct investment,restructuring of R and D sector and technology transfer during economic transition： The case of Hungary

With the industrial restructuring of former socialist countries of Eastern and Central Europe （ECE）, the local R and D system experienced fundamental changes as well. Specialized R and D institutions that supplied technology to enterprises were downsized dramatically. With the privatization of the industry, multinational corporations became major players in the advanced sectors of the industry. Sourcing of technology within the multinational corporate system increased import of technology and locally performed R and D dropped sharply. The rapid decline of R and D staff both at specialized research institutions and at the enterprise level coincided with a sharp drop in local patent applications. Operation of multinational corporations has also resulted in vertical and horizontal spillover of technology. The evidence on the extent of such transfer has varied among ECE transition economies and industrial sectors.     

Was It Worth It? The Territorial Reform in the Canton of Glarus

This paper examines the financial impact of the 2011 reform of the local governments and jurisdictions in the canton of Glarus. After a popular vote 70 public entities were reorganized to form three large uniformed communes. Previous research showed that amalgamations do not automatically lead to savings in public expenditures and economies of scale. We empirically apply the synthetic control method and show that the territorial reform realized some savings in public expenditure. However, the effect of the reorganization of tasks and responsibilities between the canton and the communes was more influential. The reform must be understood as a horizontal and vertical venture that encompasses both the communes and the canton, much more far‐reaching than a pure local territorial reform.