New - 7 March, 2001

To Cluster or Not: Cross Danube Firm Level Co-operation

The report is based on interviews with Romanian private sector representatives working in Bulgarian companies - owners, sales managers or trade consultants - who trade various products and services on the Romanian market and vice-a-versa. The interviews were held during August and September 2000 with 11 companies representing different sectors. We asked businessmen to: ·define different problems in their joint activities, · explain what they consider to be their competitive advantages in Romanian-Bulgarian partnership, ·rank their reliable sources of information and preferable kind of transport, outline the main obstacles to cooperation and their vision for long-term cooperation.

The conclusions are that factor constellations are favorable to trade operations. We found three forms of non-market competition in Bulgarian-Romanian partnership. ·Both countries have similar technologies and range of products - result of division of labor in CMEA. The inherited conditions are the reason for similar constellations and advantages in competition. We found that trade and cooperation is often due to non-market factors (production facilities out of work). · Different government instruments are used to protect domestic producers. The instrument would create a "green house" effect on import companies. Special requirements to enter the market are imposed. Local players often predate the market. Non-market mechanisms (strong informal networks) are one of the possible reasons for high entry barriers. See more

Lessons From Negative Experiences Which Prevent Growth and Prosperity (two perspectives) By Assenka Yonkova (IME) & Liviu Voinea (RCEP)

After more than a decade of policy attempts to achieve macroeconomic stabilization, gradual economic liberalization, implementation of variety of structural reform measures, and establishment of new institutional and legal framework, both Bulgaria and Romania, as a pre-accession countries, have a long way to go in order to converge towards EU standards. While the institutional framework of the centrally planned economy had been removed relatively quickly, the establishment of the free market institutional framework (in terms of regulations, institutions, and relations) turned out to be a long try-and-error process. The main objective of this report is to derive lessons from policies hampering growth and prosperity in the reform years, to initiate and contribute to a debate on alternative to the current and/or recent policies which have postponed or impeded growth-promotion, as well as to propose institutional and policy changes. Our research is concentrated on whether it is possible to reverse the negative evolution of these two economies in order to support their integration efforts and on possible alternative measures and common policies.See more

The Balkans in 2010: Economic Scenarios - This report is based upon the following: IME's own research into different aspects of Balkan economies, especially those in transition, conducted over the last four years; study of recent literature on these economies and relevant background political and economic developments; a survey of available concepts of postwar political order in South-eastern Europe; and interviews with economists from all Balkan countries. Questionnaires were especially designed for the purposes of this report.
2000 (File size 52KB)

Conditions for Long-term Growth and Prosperity in the Balkans - In Search of Growth: Bulgaria's Lessons and Policy Options. IME report under the auspices of the Regional Networking Project, funded by the USAID with the kind support from Freedom House.
1999 (File size 52KB)

Conditions for Long-term Growth and Prosperity on the Balkans: Serbia and Montenegro At present administrative division of Yugoslavia consists of 2 republics and 2 normally autonomies provinces Vojvodina and Kosovo. On 27 April 1992, Serbia and Montenegro, the only remaining republics of the former Yugoslav Federation, agreed to unite and declared themselves a new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
1999 (File size 24KB)

Conditions for Long-term Growth and Prosperity on the Balkans: Romania This paper is based on statistical information from the National Commision for Statistic of Romania, EBRD, Standard & Poor's Sovereign Ratings Service, World Bank, OECD, and data provided to standardized questionnaire by Ms Mihaela Cimpoeasu from the Freemarkonsult International, Bucharest. Opinions and conclusions further provided are based on interview with Mr. David Boren from Montpelier Asset Management, as well as from the official country presentation during the EBRD Annual Meeting which was held 17-20 April 1999 at London.
1999 (File size 35KB)

Conditions for Long-term Growth and Prosperity on the Balkans: Croatia This paper is based on statistical information from the Croatian Bureau of Statistics (CBS), EBRD, Standard & Poor's Sovereign Ratings Service, and data provided to standardized questionnaire by Mr. Predrag Bejakovic from the Institute for Public Finance, Zagreb. Opinions and conclusions further provided are based on interviews with Ms Marina Kesner-Skreb and Mr. Anto Bajo from the Institute for Public Finance, Mr. Sasa Madzarevic from the Ministry of Finance, and Ms Igeta Drinovac and Mr. Vedran Sosic from the research department of the National Bank of Croatia (HNB), as well as personal observations of the author who has visited Croatia in May 1997 and 21-23 April 1999.
1999 (File size 28KB)

Policy Statement regarding the "Post-War System for South-East Europe" Plan Prepared by the Centre for Liberal Strategies on the basis of discussions and exchanges within the South-East European regional Study Group on the Centre for European Policy Studies paper "A System for Post-War South-East Europe"
1999 (File size 39KB)

Beyond Disasters: What Policies Ensure Growth and Prosperity IME aims at initiating a public debate on specific policies the new Parliament of Bulgaria shoud undertake to ensure economic stability and prosperity in a long run, assuming that a Currency Board regime will be introduced in June 1997.
IME conference proceedings, April 1997 (File size 252KB)

Hiden Barriers to Growth and Prosperity The most important event in conducting the regional project Barriers to Growth on the Balkan Peninsula was the 14th of April Conference on Barriers to Growth held at the EBRD Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors in Sofia. It helped to gain a publicity for the project activities, to test bankers and businessmen attitude towards key results of the surveys on capital and financial markets fragmentation, hidden subsidies and informal entrepreneurship, and to receive first feedback on the planned advocacy stage of the project.
IME conference proceedings, April 1996 (File size 252KB)