This article examines the opportunities and constraints for entrepreneurship offered by the evolving institutional environment and the characteristics of the people who stepped up to the challenge. It places the concept of entrepreneurship in a transition context, before identifying in the third section the unique features of entrepreneurship in transition economies. The article discusses the evolving business environment, and reports the scale and nature of entrepreneurship in transition economies. The personal characteristics and the business strategies of entrepreneurs in transition economies are also discussed. The article concludes by outlining directions for future work.

We investigate how the regional institutional environment-in particular, the political environment-affects Russian new firm entry across regions, industries, firm size classes, and time. We find that entry rates in Russia are explained by natural entry rates and the institutional environment. Industries that are characterized by low entry barriers in developed market economies are found to have lower entry rates in regions subject to greater political fluidity, as in the case of gubernatorial change. We also find that higher levels of political fluidity and democracy increase relative entry rates for small-sized firms but reduce them for medium-sized or large ones.

Institutions and Entry: A Cross-Regional Analysis in Russia *We analyse a micro-panel data set to investigate the effect of regional institutional environment and economic factors on Russian new firm entry rates across time, industries and regions. The paper builds on novel databases and exploits inter-regional variation in a large number of institutional variables. We find entry rates across industries in Russia are not especially low by international standards and are correlated with entry rates in developed market economies, as well as with institutional environment and firm size. Furthermore, industries that, for scale or technological reasons, are characterised by higher entry rates experience lower entry within regions affected subject to political change. A higher level of democracy enhances entry rates for small sized firms but reduces them for medium or large ones.

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