Firm ownership and internal labour practices in a transition economy

One feature common to many post‐socialist transition economies is a relatively compressed wage structure in the state‐owned sector. We conjecture that this compressed wage structure creates weak incentives for work effort and worker skill acquisition and thus presents adverse consequences for the entire transition economy if a substantial portion of the labour force works in the state sector. We explore firm wage incentives and worker training, as well as other labour practices and outcomes, in a transition setting with matched firm and worker data collected in one of the largest provinces of Vietnam – Ho Chi Minh City. The Vietnamese state sector exhibits a compressed wage distribution in relation to privately owned firms with foreign ownership. State wage practices stress tenure over worker productivity and their wage policies result in flatter wage–experience profiles and lower returns to education. The state work force is in greater need of formal training, a need that is in part met through direct government financing. In spite of the opportunities for government financed training and at least partly due to inefficient worker incentives, state firms, by certain measures, exhibit lower levels of labour productivity. The private sector comparison group to state firms for all of these findings is foreign owned firms. The internal labour practices of foreign firms are more consistent with a view of profit‐maximizing firms operating with no political constraints. This is not the case for Vietnamese de novo private firms that exhibit much more idiosyncratic behaviour and whose labour practices are often indistinguishable from state firms. The exact reasons for this remain a topic of on‐going research yet we conjecture that various private sector constraints, including limited access to formal capital, play an important role.     

The curse of natural resources in the transition economies*

The curse of natural resources is a well‐documented phenomenon for developing countries. Economies that are richly endowed with natural resources tend to grow slowly. Among the transition economies of the former ‘Eastern Bloc’, a similar pattern can be observed. This paper shows that a large part of the variation in growth rates among the transition economies can be attributed to the curse of natural resources. After controlling for numerous other factors, there is still a strong negative correlation between natural resource abundance and economic growth. Among the transition economies the prime reasons for the curse of natural resources were corruption and a neglect of basic education. In order to overcome the curse of natural resources and move to a sustainable path of development, the resource abundant transition countries should fight corruption and ensure that their resource revenues are invested in human capital or the preservation of natural capital.     

Leaving state sector employment in Russia

I analyse the reallocation of labour and human capital from the state sector to the non‐state sector and non‐employment in Russia. I use a nationally representative household dataset, the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey, to study sectoral mobility in early transition using summary measures of mobility and multivariate discrete choice models. The results show that sectoral mobility varies between different skill groups, and in particular that those with university education, with supervisory responsibility and in white‐collar occupations are less likely to leave state jobs for both non‐state employment and non‐employment. The results suggest that in the early stages of transition in Russia mismatch of skills across state/non‐state employment was significant and that non‐state employment consisted mostly of low skill, ‘bad’ jobs.     

Squatting as a transition problem in South Africa

This paper applies principles of transition to land tenure and squatting in South Africa. Political transition in South Africa reassigned political property rights, which produced contestable, and rent‐seeking incentives for squatting as a means to privatize land and redistribute wealth. Government failure to establish and protect private property rights in a squatter camp resulted in common‐pool problems that resisted private and public resolution with consequent rent dissipation and social loss. In response to this retreat from duty, informal agents emerged to claim their own share of the prize. Without enforceable rules of capture, the growth of squatter camps in South Africa will continue. JEL classification: D7, H8, K1, K4, R1, R4.     

Institutional design and the closure of public facilities in transition economies

As part of the reforms of their systems for financing and delivering health care, many transition economies, particularly in central and eastern Europe, have adopted national insurance funds that are institutionally separate from ministries of health. Most of these countries have also grappled with the problem of restructuring the delivery system, especially the need to reduce hospital capacity. Although improving the performance of medical care providers through a shift from passive budgeting to explicitly incentive mechanisms is important, why this change in financial relations between the government and providers could not be implemented simply by reforming the role of health ministries is not obvious. This paper presents an explicit rationale for the separation of powers between the regulator (the ministry of health) and the financing body (the insurance fund), based on the inability of a single agency to commit to closing hospitals. JEL classification: L51, P20, P35, I18.     

当前我国政府绩效管理问题探析

当前,我国政府绩效管理中存在的问题,主要是政府绩效管理缺乏统一的政策指导和制度保障,对政府缋效管理的理论研究与实践发展滞后,社会参与机制不完善,激励制度匮乏等。我国应通过立法来推进政府绩效管理的制度化和规范化;学习和借鉴西方先进思想,加强政府绩效管理的理论研究,建立有效的绩效评估指标体系和完善的激励制度。从而提高我国政府效能。增强政府管理能力。     

黄河流域和长江经济带制造业绿色转型效率对比

以黄河流域和长江经济带沿线19个省份为样本,建立超效率SBM(slack-based measure)模型测算分析了2013-2022年黄河流域和长江经济带的制造业绿色转型效率,并利用\"泰尔指数\"进行转型效率的差异性分析.研究发现,长江经济带绿色转型效率呈上升趋势,相反黄河流域发展相对缓慢;通过差异性分析发现黄河流域的域制造业绿色转型效率低于长江经济带,并且黄河流域中各省份的差异性相差较大.     

我国地方政府债务风险研究

地方政府债务风险影响经济发展和社会稳定。财权事权不对称、干部考核任用制度缺陷,行政管理体制缺陷和债务管理不完善是地方政府债务风险形成的原因。对此应采取相应的措施加以防范。