After 20 Years of Status Quo: The Failure of Gradualism in Slovenia’s Post-Socialist Transition

In the past 20 years, the Slovenia has been praised as the richest former socialist country, having accomplished the advancement from borrower into donor status at the World Bank and having entered the European Monetary Union as the first country from former socialist block. In the due course of transition to market, Slovenia adopted the gradualist approach to economic reform, emphasizing gradual privatization, excessive regulation of the labor market and financial sector as well as the slow stabilization of public finances. In this paper, we review macroeconomic performance of Slovenia in past two decades in a comparative perspective. The paper outlines the growth trajectory of Slovenia from the onset of Habsburg Empire to the present. We showed that until 1939, Slovenia has almost fully converged to the income per capita frontier of Austria and Italy while the income per capita diverged substantially in the period 1945-1990 from Western European frontier. We review the contours of labor market protectionism, state dominance in banking and financial sector and emergence of the corporate oligarchy as the main symptoms of stalled economic performance given a substantial differential in income per capita between Slovenia and EU15. Moreover, we demonstrate how former communist elites transformed into powerful networks of interest groups which preserved status quo from socialist period through systemic blockade of key economic reforms to stabilize public finances in the light of age-related pressures and to boost productivity growth and structural change.post-socialist transition, macroeconomic stabilization, economic growth, political economy, Slovenia

After 20 years of status quo: the failure of gradualism in Slovenia’s post-socialist transition

In the past 20 years, the Slovenia has been praised as the richest former socialist country, having accomplished the advancement from borrower into donor status at the World Bank and having entered the European Monetary Union as the first country from former socialist block. In the due course of transition to market, Slovenia adopted the gradualist approach to economic reform, emphasizing gradual privatization, excessive regulation of the labor market and financial sector as well as the slow stabilization of public finances. In this paper, we review macroeconomic performance of Slovenia in past two decades in a comparative perspective. The paper outlines the growth trajectory of Slovenia from the onset of Habsburg Empire to the present. We showed that until 1939, Slovenia has almost fully converged to the income per capita frontier of Austria and Italy while the income per capita diverged substantially in the period 1945-1990 from Western European frontier. We review the contours of labor market protectionism, state dominance in banking and financial sector and emergence of the corporate oligarchy as the main symptoms of stalled economic performance given a substantial differential in income per capita between Slovenia and EU15. Moreover, we demonstrate how former communist elites transformed into powerful networks of interest groups which preserved status quo from socialist period through systemic blockade of key economic reforms to stabilize public finances in the light of age-related pressures and to boost productivity growth and structural change.post-socialist transition, macroeconomic stabilization, economic growth, political economy, Slovenia

Estimating the Effects of Syrian Civil War

We examine the effect of civil war in Syria on economic growth, human development and institutional quality. Building on the synthetic control method, we estimate the missing counterfactual scenario in the hypothetical absence of the armed conflict that led to unprecedented humanitarian crisis and population displacement in modern history. By matching Syrian growth and development trajectories with the characteristics of the donor pool of 66 countries with no armed internal conflict in the period 1996-2021, we estimate a series of growth and development gaps attributed to civil war. Syrian civil war appears to have had a temporary negative effect on the trajectory of economic growth that almost disappeared before the onset of COVID19 pandemic. By contrast, the civil war led to unprecedented losses in human development, rising infant mortality and rampantly deteriorating institutional quality. Down to the present day, each year of the conflict led to 5,700 additional under-five child deaths with permanently derailed negative effect on longevity. The civil war led to unprecedent and permanent deterioration in institutional quality indicated by pervasive weakening of the rule of law and deleterious impacts on government effectiveness, civil liberties and widespread escalation of corruption. The estimated effects survive a battery of placebo checks.Comment: 34 page

Inefficient Growth

The notion that legal institutions matter for growth and development can hardly be disputed in a world of non-zero transaction costs. This research advances the hypothesis that transaction costs explain large and wide-standing cross-country productivity differences. We examine the contribution of transaction costs to total factor productivity for a large panel of countries. We show that transaction costs reflect the policy constraints, country-specific policies, distortions and barriers to entry that discourage the adoption of the efficient use of technology by protecting the vested interests in the existing production process. Our findings suggest that lower costs of contract enforcement, low-cost and efficient insolvency framework and accessible property rights contribute substantially to TFP growth over time while weaker effects are found for lighter business registration and licensing requirements. Our results are stable across a variety of estimation techniques. By exploiting the variation in pre-industrial urbanization rate, disease environment, and latent cultural traits, we show that the negative effect of rising transaction costs on TFP appears to be causal.

Iceland's Economic and Financial Crisis: Causes, Consequences and Implications

Iceland experienced a significant financial meltdown and subsequent economic downturn after the 2008/2009 financial crisis struck the country. It had been the worst crisis ever experienced by a small country from the late 20th century onwards. Since 1980s, Iceland's macroeconomic stability had been constantly deteriorated by the most volatile annual CPI and asset-price inflation dynamics in the OECD. More than a decade of robust growth dynamics left behind an internationally over-exposed banking sector which exceeded the size of country's GDP by nearly 10 times. The failure of Lehman Brothers and a global credit crunch, in turn, raised CDS rates on Icelandic banks which immediately declared insolvency after the global interbank lending froze. The paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the macroeconomic, banking and financial background of the crisis. It also provides a short-term analysis of Iceland's macroeconomic outlook. The main findings of the article conclude that the depth of financial crisis is attributed to the recent decade of unadjusted monetary policy which failed to prevent sharp appreciation of the krona and thus created sufficient conditions for significant asset-price inflation, high interest rate differential and the largest banking collapse in small and open economies. As the size of the banking sector was several times the country's GDP, Icelandic central bank failed to act as a lender of the last resort. The paper concludes that, to prevent future crises of similar proportions, it is impossible for a small country to have a large international banking sector, its own currency and an independent monetary policy

After 20 Years of Status Quo: The Failure of Gradualism in Slovenia’s Post-Socialist Transition

In the past 20 years, the Slovenia has been praised as the richest former socialist country, having accomplished the advancement from borrower into donor status at the World Bank and having entered the European Monetary Union as the first country from former socialist block. In the due course of transition to market, Slovenia adopted the gradualist approach to economic reform, emphasizing gradual privatization, excessive regulation of the labor market and financial sector as well as the slow stabilization of public finances. In this paper, we review macroeconomic performance of Slovenia in past two decades in a comparative perspective. The paper outlines the growth trajectory of Slovenia from the onset of Habsburg Empire to the present. We showed that until 1939, Slovenia has almost fully converged to the income per capita frontier of Austria and Italy while the income per capita diverged substantially in the period 1945-1990 from Western European frontier. We review the contours of labor market protectionism, state dominance in banking and financial sector and emergence of the corporate oligarchy as the main symptoms of stalled economic performance given a substantial differential in income per capita between Slovenia and EU15. Moreover, we demonstrate how former communist elites transformed into powerful networks of interest groups which preserved status quo from socialist period through systemic blockade of key economic reforms to stabilize public finances in the light of age-related pressures and to boost productivity growth and structural change

Productivity and income convergence in transition: theory and evidence from Central Europe

The paper examines the evolution of income per capita for a sample of high-income transition countries in the period 1991-2007. The analysis focuses on the dynamics of income per capita convergence throughout the period. We review patterns of income dispersion in Central Europe in a historical perspective and examine the evolution of convergence and divergence in a distinct perspective. We present the model of beta convergence by augmenting the basic Solow-Swan model with human capital accumulation and total fertility rate. Our evidence suggests that high-income transition countries experienced a period of robust convergence as the income per capita differential, relative to the U.S level, diminished substantially over time. In addition, the increase in the stock of human capital contributed substantially to the speed of real convergence

Aging population and public pensions: theory and evidence

Rapidly aging population in high-income countries has exerted additional pressure on the sustainability of public pension expenditure. We present a formal model of public pension expenditure under endogenous human capital, where the latter facilitates a substantial decrease in equilibrium fertility rate alongside the improvement in life expectancy. We demonstrate how higher life expectancy and human capital endowment facilitate the rise of net replacement rate. We provide and examine an empirical model of old-age expenditure in a panel of 33 countries in the period 1998–2008. Our results indicate that increases in total fertility rate and effective retirement age would reduce age-related expenditure substantially. While higher net replacement rate would alleviate the risk of old-age poverty, it would endanger long-term sustainability of public finance by imposing additional pressure on deficit and public debt

Democracy, technocracy and economic growth: evidence from 20 century Spain

Este artículo investiga qué tipo de cambios institucionales tienen un mayor impacto en el crecimiento económico de largo plazo: las reformas de carácter tecnocrático orientadas a la economía o la democratización. Con este objetivo, para el caso de España, examinamos el Plan de Estabilización de 1959 y la Transición a la democracia (en torno a 1979) como fuentes de variación para las 50 provincias españolas en el período 1950-2016. Nuestro enfoque consiste en estudiar los impactos mediante la estimación de los escenarios contrafactuales utilizando el método de control sintético. Nuestros resultados muestran que las dos estrategias tienen un impacto positivo sobre el crecimiento económico subnacional. Una comparación directa entre ambas apunta a que el efecto del Plan de Estabilización pudo ser cuatro veces mayor que el de la Transición. El efecto medio del Plan sobre el crecimiento es aproximadamente un 40 % mayor que en el escenario contrafactual y parece ser permanente. Los efectos estimados se mantienen frente a diferentes pruebas de placebo y otros contrastes adicionales de robustez. En cuanto al análisis de las medidas específicas del Plan de 1959, parece que las políticas de carácter interno generaron un impacto más positivo y de mayor alcance que las externas, dependientes del acceso al FMI.We examine the contribution of economic and institutional transitions as two potential sources of subnational economic growth in Spain. To this end, we exploit the economic reforms of the 1959 Stabilization Plan (as an example of technocratic, economy-oriented reform) and the democratic transition in 1979 in Spain as the sources of variation for a sample of 50 Spanish provinces in the period 1950-2016. Our approach is to examine the impacts by estimating the missing counterfactual scenarios using the synthetic control method. Our results unveil a positive effect for both economic and institutional transitions on subnational economic growth. A direct comparison of both transitions suggests that the effect of economic liberalization is four-fold higher than the effect of political liberalization. The average growth effect of the economic liberalization is around 40% higher relative to the counterfactual scenario and it appears to be permanent. The estimated effects are robust to the variety of placebo tests and additional robustness checks. This article also deepens the analysis of the effects of the 1959 plan and finds that the policies that generated the most positive impact were those of an “internal” nature, compared to the external ones, dependent on access to the IMF (also positive, but of lesser impact)

Aging population and public pensions: theory and evidence

Rapidly aging population in high-income countries has exerted additional pressure on the sustainability of public pension expenditure. We present a formal model of public pension expenditure under endogenous human capital, where the latter facilitates a substantial decrease in equilibrium fertility rate alongside the improvement in life expectancy. We demonstrate how higher life expectancy and human capital endowment facilitate the rise of net replacement rate. We provide and examine an empirical model of old-age expenditure in a panel of 33 countries in the period 1998–2008. Our results indicate that increases in total fertility rate and effective retirement age would reduce age-related expenditure substantially. While higher net replacement rate would alleviate the risk of old-age poverty, it would endanger long-term sustainability of public finance by imposing additional pressure on deficit and public debt