Entrepreneurship in Transition Economies: The Role of Institutions and Generational Change

Saul Estrin () and Tomasz Mickiewicz
Additional contact information
Saul Estrin: London School of Economics

No 4805, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: The transition economies have lower rates of entrepreneurship than are observed in most developed and developing market economies. The difference is even more marked in the countries of the former Soviet Union than those of Central and Eastern Europe. We link these differences partly with the legacy of communist planning, which needs to be replaced with formal market-supporting institutions. But many of these developments have now taken place, yet entrepreneurial activity still remains low in many places. To analyse this longer term issue, we highlight the necessarily slow pace of development of new informal institutions and the corresponding social attitudes, notably rebuilding the generalised trust. We argue that changes are even slower in the former Soviet Union than Central and Eastern Europe because communist rule was much longer, leading to a lack of institutional memory. We posit that changes in informal institutions may be therefore delayed until after full generational change.

Keywords: institutional arrangements; shadow economy; formal and informal sectors; entrepreneurship; comparative studies of countries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L26 O17 O57 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 43 pages
Date: 2010-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ent and nep-tra
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (31)

Published - published in: Maria Minniti (ed.) 2011, The Dynamics of Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Data, Oxford, pp.181-208

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp4805.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Entrepreneurship in transition economies: the role of institutions and generational change (2010)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4805

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().