Circumstance and choice : the role of initial conditions and policies in transition economies

The experience of countries in transition from a planned to a market-oriented economy has varied greatly. The clearest differences are between the East Asian countries, China and Vietnam, and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the former Soviet Union (FSU). China and Vietnam have contained inflation and benefited from continued high growth in GDP since the beginning of their reforms, while all CEE and FSU countries have experienced large declines in output, and most have experienced hyperinflation. But even in CEE and the FSU, differences are marked. Some countries have lost over half of their GDP, and growth performance in a number of countries is still poor, while others are growing strongly. Some are still suffering from high inflation while others have successfully reduced annual inflation. What determines this divergence of outcomes across transition countries? No study so far has analyzed the interaction of all factors, including initial conditions, political change, and reforms, in a unified framework including CEE, the FSU, China, and Vietnam. The authors examine these broader interactions, but focus first on the role of initial conditions, such as initial macroeconomic distortions and differences in economic structure and institutions, which have been emphasized less in the literature. They find that initial conditions and economic policy jointly determine the large differences in economic performance among the 28 transition economies in the sample. Initial conditions dominate in explaining inflation, but economic liberalization is the most important factor determining differences in growth. But reform policy choices are not exogenous. They depend, in turn, on both initial conditions and political reform, with political reform the most important determinant of the speed and comprehensiveness of economic liberalization. Other findings provide additional insight into these relationships. Results show that liberalization has a negative contemporaneous impact, but a stronger positive effect on performance over time. The results also show that macroeconomic and structural distortions are negatively related to both policy and performance. Regarding the former, unfavorable initial conditions discourage policy reforms but do not diminish their effectiveness once they are implemented. The authors find some evidence that the influence of initial conditions diminishes over time. This is in part because many of the initial conditions are themselves modified in the course of transition. Monetary overhangs are dissipated through inflation, industrial overhang is eroded as plants shut down, and market memory returns through experience.Economic Conditions and Volatility,Economic Theory&Research,Enterprise Development&Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Governance Indicators,Economic Conditions and Volatility,Achieving Shared Growth

Circumstance and Choice: The Role of Initial Conditions and Policies in Transition Economies

This article takes an integrated approach to evaluating the interaction of initial conditions, political change, reforms and economic performance in a unified framework covering 28 transition economies in East Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, and the fsu. Initial conditions and economic policy jointly determine the large differences in economic performance among transition economies. Initial conditions dominate in explaining inflation, but economic liberalization is the most important factor determining differences in growth. Political reform emerges as the most important determinant of the speed and comprehensiveness of economic liberalization, raising the important question of what determines political liberalization. Results suggest the importance of the level of development in determining the decision to expand political freedom

METER.AC: Live Open Access Atmospheric Monitoring Data for Bulgaria with High Spatiotemporal Resolution

Detailed atmospheric monitoring data are notoriously difficult to obtain for some geographic regions, while they are of paramount importance in scientific research, forecasting, emergency response, policy making, etc. We describe a continuously updated dataset, METER.AC, consisting of raw measurements of atmospheric pressure, temperature, relative humidity, particulate matter, and background radiation in about 100 locations in Bulgaria, as well as some derived values such as sea-level atmospheric pressure, dew/frost point, and hourly trends. The measurements are performed by low-power maintenance-free nodes with common hardware and software, which are specifically designed and optimized for this purpose. The time resolution of the measurements is 5 min. The short-term aim is to deploy at least one node per 100 km2, while uniformly covering altitudes between 0 and 3000 m asl with a special emphasis on remote mountainous areas. A full history of all raw measurements (non-aggregated in time and space) is publicly available, starting from September 2018. We describe the basic technical characteristics of our in-house developed equipment, data organization, and communication protocols as well as present some use case examples. The METER.AC network relies on the paradigm of the Internet of Things (IoT), by collecting data from various gauges. A guiding principle in this work is the provision of findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) data. The dataset is in the public domain, and it provides resources and tools enabling citizen science development in the context of sustainable development

Architecture and Data Knowledge of the Regional Data Center for Intelligent Agriculture

The main task of the National Research Program “Smart crop production”, supported by the Ministry of Education and Science of Bulgaria and approved by the Council of Ministers, is the development of a regional data center to facilitate the work of farmers. The regional data center is part of the implementation of a smart crop production environment called ZEMEL which provides personal assistants supporting the work of farmers. The environment provides intelligent services for crop analysis and prevention and assists farmers in performing basic tasks related to crop production. The objective of the proposed article is to present the implementation of the architecture, infrastructure, and data architecture of a regional data center in the Plovdiv region. In order to clearly present the results of this work, which are the architectural and physical implementations of a regional data center and the storage of dynamic data and background knowledge, a methodology consisting of several steps is followed: the system infrastructure of the data center and the data architecture are discussed; one of the local pieces of infrastructure, implemented in the Institute of Plant Genetic Resources (IPGR) in the town of Sadovo in the Plovdiv region, is presented in detail, including the different types of sensors and their connection to the data center in wheat cultivation; the data repositories are discussed where dynamic data and background knowledge are stored. The paper pays special attention to background knowledge developed as ontologies for winter wheat cultivation. The results are summarized by drawing some conclusions and recommendations for the design of the local infrastructure of the center and the stored data to improve its performance

On the Role of Government in Transition: The Experiences of China and Russia Compared

The different economic performance of transitioning Asia versus Central and Eastern Europe and the FSU (CEEFSU) has been arguably the most salient fact of transition. Particularly remarkable has been the contrast between China and Russia. This paper argues that the contrasting experiences of China and Russia can in part be explained by the different roles that governments have played in the transition process of these countries. China gave priority to administrative reform, aligned bureaucratic incentives at all levels with growth and development objectives, and enhanced enterprise and local autonomy while preserving the capacity of the centre to exercise control. This approach transformed government bodies into real owners of the reform process and led to privatisation over time that was largely welfare enhancing. Russia, on the contrary gave priority to economic over state restructuring. Major reforms including mass privatisation were implemented in an environment of a weak state, which did not have the capacity to protect its ownership rights and coordinate reforms. As a result, privatisation was a wasteful process associated with asset stripping and consequently with lack of legitimacy of newly established property rights. These contrasting experiences carry broader lessons for the role of the government in large-scale complex reforms. Comparative Economic Studies (2007) 49, 543–571. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ces.8100230