John S Earle
Biographic Data
| ID | 984482 |
|---|---|
| NAME | John S Earle |
| GIVEN NAMES | John S |
| FAMILY NAME | Earle |
| SIGNATURE | EARLE J S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Central European University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8507-6685 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 83 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1981 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
The Oligarch Vanishes: Defensive Ownership, Property Rights, and Political Connections
We examine the use of proxies, shell companies, and offshore firms to defend property against seizure by private and state actors. Our theoretical framework emphasizes the role of political connections in defensive ownership. Linking information from investigative journalists on the key holdings of numerous Ukrainian oligarchs with firm-level administrative data on formal ownership ties, we observe some form of defensive ownership among more than…
Foreign Ownership and Wages: Evidence from Hungary, 1986-2008
This article estimates the wage effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) using firm-level and linked employer-employee panel data containing a large number of foreign acquisitions over a long period of rapid development in Hungary. Matching on pre-acquisition data, the authors find that much of the raw foreign wage premium represents selection bias, but that foreign acquisition nevertheless raises average wages by 15 to 29% when controlling for…
The Productivity Consequences of Political Turnover: Firm‐Level Evidence from Ukraine's Orange Revolution
We examine the impact of political turnover on economic performance in a setting of largely unanticipated political change and profoundly weak institutions: the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine. Exploiting census‐type panel data on over 7,000 manufacturing enterprises, we find that the productivity of firms in the regions most supportive of Viktor Yushchenko increased by more than 15 percentage points in the three years following his election, r…
Employment and Wage Effects of Privatisation: Evidence from Hungary, Romania, Russia and Ukraine
We use longitudinal methods and universal panel data on 30,000 initially state-owned manufacturing firms in four transition economies to estimate the impact of privatisation on employment and wages. The results consistently reject job losses and never imply large wage cuts from either domestic or foreign privatisation. The domestic privatisation estimates are close to zero for employment; for wages, they are negative but small in magnitude. Estim…
Complementarity and Custom in Wage Contract Violation
We present and estimate a model with strategic complementarities in firms' choices of on-time or delayed wage payment. Linked employer-employee panel data from Russia facilitate identification of the endogenous interactions through fixed effects for firms, workers, and local labor markets, and instrumental variables based on policy interventions. The estimated reaction function displays strongly positive neighborhood effects, and the estimated fe…
Helping Hand or Grabbing Hand? State Bureaucracy and Privatization Effectiveness
Why have economic reforms aimed at reducing the role of the state been successful in some cases but not others? Are reform failures the consequence of leviathan states that hinder private economic activity, or of weak states unable to implement policies effectively and provide a supportive institutional environment? We explore these questions in a study of privatization in postcommunist Russia. Taking advantage of large regional variation in the …
The Productivity Effects of Privatization: Longitudinal Estimates from Hungary, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine
This paper estimates the effect of privatization on multifactor productivity using comprehensive panel data on initially state-owned manufacturing firms in four economies. We exploit the data's longitudinal dimension to control for preprivatization selection and estimate long-run impacts. The estimates are robust to functional form but sensitive to selection controls. Our preferred random growth estimates imply positive multifactor productivity e…
What Makes Small Firms Grow? Finance, Human Capital, Technical Assistance, and the Business Environment in Romania
Although the development of a new private sector is generally considered crucial to economic transition, there has been little empirical research on the determinants of start‐up firm growth. This article analyzes panel data on 297 new small enterprises in Romania with detailed annual information from the start‐up date through 2001. Controlling for heterogeneity with a rich set of firm characteristics and firm fixed effects, our panel regressions …
Privatization in Eastern Europe: A Critical Approach
The Privatization Process in Central Europe
The Flood Problems of Venice
Although Venice has been flooded occasionally for centuries, it experienced its highest flood in 1966, with water 1.94 m above sea level. Since then there has been wide controversy, scientifically and politically, about the best measures to prevent a re-occurrence; these are here reviewed in some detail. Of the five civil engineering solutions proposed, only one, the Agiltec Project A and B, has ever been made public and the arguments for and aga…
The Productivity Effects of Privatization: Longitudinal Estimates from Hungary, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine
This paper estimates the effect of privatization on multifactor productivity using comprehensive panel data on initially state-owned manufacturing firms in four economies. We exploit the data's longitudinal dimension to control for preprivatization selection and estimate long-run impacts. The estimates are robust to functional form but sensitive to selection controls. Our preferred random growth estimates imply positive multifactor productivity e…
Helping Hand or Grabbing Hand? State Bureaucracy and Privatization Effectiveness
Why have economic reforms aimed at reducing the role of the state been successful in some cases but not others? Are reform failures the consequence of leviathan states that hinder private economic activity, or of weak states unable to implement policies effectively and provide a supportive institutional environment? We explore these questions in a study of privatization in postcommunist Russia. Taking advantage of large regional variation in the …
The Productivity Consequences of Political Turnover: Firm‐Level Evidence from Ukraine's Orange Revolution
We examine the impact of political turnover on economic performance in a setting of largely unanticipated political change and profoundly weak institutions: the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine. Exploiting census‐type panel data on over 7,000 manufacturing enterprises, we find that the productivity of firms in the regions most supportive of Viktor Yushchenko increased by more than 15 percentage points in the three years following his election, r…
Employment and Wage Effects of Privatisation: Evidence from Hungary, Romania, Russia and Ukraine
We use longitudinal methods and universal panel data on 30,000 initially state-owned manufacturing firms in four transition economies to estimate the impact of privatisation on employment and wages. The results consistently reject job losses and never imply large wage cuts from either domestic or foreign privatisation. The domestic privatisation estimates are close to zero for employment; for wages, they are negative but small in magnitude. Estim…
What Makes Small Firms Grow? Finance, Human Capital, Technical Assistance, and the Business Environment in Romania
Although the development of a new private sector is generally considered crucial to economic transition, there has been little empirical research on the determinants of start‐up firm growth. This article analyzes panel data on 297 new small enterprises in Romania with detailed annual information from the start‐up date through 2001. Controlling for heterogeneity with a rich set of firm characteristics and firm fixed effects, our panel regressions …
The Oligarch Vanishes: Defensive Ownership, Property Rights, and Political Connections
We examine the use of proxies, shell companies, and offshore firms to defend property against seizure by private and state actors. Our theoretical framework emphasizes the role of political connections in defensive ownership. Linking information from investigative journalists on the key holdings of numerous Ukrainian oligarchs with firm-level administrative data on formal ownership ties, we observe some form of defensive ownership among more than…
Foreign Ownership and Wages: Evidence from Hungary, 1986-2008
This article estimates the wage effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) using firm-level and linked employer-employee panel data containing a large number of foreign acquisitions over a long period of rapid development in Hungary. Matching on pre-acquisition data, the authors find that much of the raw foreign wage premium represents selection bias, but that foreign acquisition nevertheless raises average wages by 15 to 29% when controlling for…
The Flood Problems of Venice
Although Venice has been flooded occasionally for centuries, it experienced its highest flood in 1966, with water 1.94 m above sea level. Since then there has been wide controversy, scientifically and politically, about the best measures to prevent a re-occurrence; these are here reviewed in some detail. Of the five civil engineering solutions proposed, only one, the Agiltec Project A and B, has ever been made public and the arguments for and aga…
The Privatization Process in Central Europe
Privatization in Eastern Europe: A Critical Approach
What Makes Small Firms Grow? Finance, Human Capital, Technical Assistance, and the Business Environment in Romania
Although the development of a new private sector is generally considered crucial to economic transition, there has been little empirical research on the determinants of start‐up firm growth. This article analyzes panel data on 297 new small enterprises in Romania with detailed annual information from the start‐up date through 2001. Controlling for heterogeneity with a rich set of firm characteristics and firm fixed effects, our panel regressions …
The Productivity Effects of Privatization: Longitudinal Estimates from Hungary, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine
This paper estimates the effect of privatization on multifactor productivity using comprehensive panel data on initially state-owned manufacturing firms in four economies. We exploit the data's longitudinal dimension to control for preprivatization selection and estimate long-run impacts. The estimates are robust to functional form but sensitive to selection controls. Our preferred random growth estimates imply positive multifactor productivity e…
Complementarity and Custom in Wage Contract Violation
We present and estimate a model with strategic complementarities in firms' choices of on-time or delayed wage payment. Linked employer-employee panel data from Russia facilitate identification of the endogenous interactions through fixed effects for firms, workers, and local labor markets, and instrumental variables based on policy interventions. The estimated reaction function displays strongly positive neighborhood effects, and the estimated fe…
Helping Hand or Grabbing Hand? State Bureaucracy and Privatization Effectiveness
Why have economic reforms aimed at reducing the role of the state been successful in some cases but not others? Are reform failures the consequence of leviathan states that hinder private economic activity, or of weak states unable to implement policies effectively and provide a supportive institutional environment? We explore these questions in a study of privatization in postcommunist Russia. Taking advantage of large regional variation in the …
Employment and Wage Effects of Privatisation: Evidence from Hungary, Romania, Russia and Ukraine
We use longitudinal methods and universal panel data on 30,000 initially state-owned manufacturing firms in four transition economies to estimate the impact of privatisation on employment and wages. The results consistently reject job losses and never imply large wage cuts from either domestic or foreign privatisation. The domestic privatisation estimates are close to zero for employment; for wages, they are negative but small in magnitude. Estim…
The Productivity Consequences of Political Turnover: Firm‐Level Evidence from Ukraine's Orange Revolution
We examine the impact of political turnover on economic performance in a setting of largely unanticipated political change and profoundly weak institutions: the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine. Exploiting census‐type panel data on over 7,000 manufacturing enterprises, we find that the productivity of firms in the regions most supportive of Viktor Yushchenko increased by more than 15 percentage points in the three years following his election, r…
Foreign Ownership and Wages: Evidence from Hungary, 1986-2008
This article estimates the wage effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) using firm-level and linked employer-employee panel data containing a large number of foreign acquisitions over a long period of rapid development in Hungary. Matching on pre-acquisition data, the authors find that much of the raw foreign wage premium represents selection bias, but that foreign acquisition nevertheless raises average wages by 15 to 29% when controlling for…
The Oligarch Vanishes: Defensive Ownership, Property Rights, and Political Connections
We examine the use of proxies, shell companies, and offshore firms to defend property against seizure by private and state actors. Our theoretical framework emphasizes the role of political connections in defensive ownership. Linking information from investigative journalists on the key holdings of numerous Ukrainian oligarchs with firm-level administrative data on formal ownership ties, we observe some form of defensive ownership among more than…
Economics (9 works) · Panel data (6 works) · Business (5 works) · Labour economics (5 works) · Political science (5 works) · Productivity (5 works) · Politics (4 works) · Russia and Soviet political economy (4 works) · Econometrics (3 works) · Economic growth (3 works)