Seminar in International Economics: The Structural Transformation of Transition Economies (Hybrid event)

The Competence Centre for International Economics Research (FIW) kindly invites to participate in the Seminar in International Economics on the topic

The Structural Transformation of Transition Economies (Hybrid event)

Calumn Hamilton
Groningen Growth and Development Centre

Tuesday, 21st of February 2023, 3:00 pm (CET)
Venue: The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (wiiw), Rahlgasse 3, 1060 Vienna

Registration link for onsite participation:
https://wiiw.ac.at/the-structural-transformation-of-transition-economies-er-608.html

Registration link for online participation:
https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_JLcxVR6aTMe1egFwXow0XA

Abstract:
This paper documents inter-industry structural change in the former-Soviet transition economies for the three decades since the breakup of the Soviet Union and compares with the experience of other developing regions. It examines empirically the contribution of such structural change to overall labour productivity growth. It presents a new dataset - the Economic Transformation Database of Transition Economies [ETD-TE] - of annual sectoral employment and value added data for fourteen former-Soviet Republics across the period 1990-2019. This dataset is built from scratch from primary and archive sources and is designed as a 'bolt-on attachment' for the GGDC/UNU-WIDER Economic Transformation Database. Stylized facts and shift-share decomposition analysis reveal that workers reallocated to less productive activities in the transition economies, but that this effect is concentrated in the first decade of transition. This finding is in contrast to other major world developing regions such as Africa, Latin America, and Developing Asia, which demonstrated a non-negative structural change contribution to labour productivity over the same time period Sub-regional analysis shows exceptions to the general trend in the case of the Baltic republics, which experienced growth-enhancing structural change throughout, and the Core countries of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine, which reverted to growth-reducing structural change in the most recent decade.

The seminar series is organised by the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (wiiw) in co-operation with FIW, the Centre of Competence in International Economics. The seminar provides a forum for presentation and discussion of recent academic research in the field of international economics.