Divergence in Growth in Post-Communist Countries

Abstract

The paper analyzes the divergence of economic growth in post-communist countries along geographical lines. It examines the role of culture, manifested in the form of civil society, social capital, trust, religious and business ethics, and historical experience, in the economic growth. Multivariate regression, a path (structural equation) model, and sensitivity analysis are used to determine direct and indirect effects of culture, policy, corruption, war, initial economic conditions, and ethnicity on the economic growth in 28 post-communist countries in 1990–1998. The statistical analyses show that a cultural index, which reflects civil society strength, the proportion of Catholics and Protestants in the population and historical experience, has the strongest effect on growth, economic reform, macroeconomic stabilization policy and corruption.

Regional Political Divisions in Ukraine in 1991–2006

“…Historical legacies and religious traditions have led to divergence in the levels of corruption, economic liberalization and economic growth in post-Communist countries. 16 Ukraine includes regions that have belonged to different states for significant historical periods of time. The Ivano-Frankivsk Region, the Lviv Region, and most of the Ternopil Region were part of Galicia province in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy from 1772 to World War I.…”

Understanding the Changing Nature of Sports Organisations in Transforming Societies

“…The works of Katchanovski (2000) on divergence in growth in all 28 post-communist countries, Granato, Ingelhart and Leblang (1996) Borrowing from Merriam"s (1998) four essential characteristics of a qualitative case study this research was defined as: particularistic, focusing on one particular phenomenon which is the process of change in context; descriptive, as the end product includes a rich description of the phenomenon under study; heuristic, as the cases sought to illuminate our understanding of the process of change in Bulgarian NGOs by bringing about the discovery of new meaning, and extending our experience or confirming what is known; and, inductive, as reasoning from the derived data lead to generalisations and concepts emphasising the "discovery of new relationships, concepts, and understanding, rather than verification of predetermined hypotheses, characterizes qualitative research" (p. 13). The study expected to be able to identify the differences responsible for contradictory outcomes in at least similar circumstances (Eisenhardt, 1989).…”

The Impact of the Interaction between Context Variables and Enterprise Resource Planning Systems on Organizational Performance: A Case Study from a Transition Economy

“…However, besides sharing commonalities, the transition economies took different routes and faced some different challenges. For example, Katchanovski (2000) finds that culture (understood as civil society, social capital, trust, religion and business ethics, and historical experience) affects the variation in economic growth in post-communist countries.…”