Case Studies on Impediments to Exports in Small Transition Economies

This series of enterprise case studies grew out from a 1995-1996 research project at IIASA. It acknowledged the importance of export development for the recovery of the economies of Central and Eastern Europe following their deep transformational recession in 1990-1994. The main goal was a systematic empirical analysis of the different kinds of impediments to exports in various small East European countries. The project included the coordinated elaboration of country studies for seven small transitional economies (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia) and the writing of three topical studies. The authors of the country studies and the author of the topical study on Russia were requested to base their work on 20 enterprise case studies each (eventually the Russian study was based on 10 cases). Before the start of the research a common scheme of the enterprise case studies was discussed and agreed upon with the authors. After completing their work the authors were asked to supplement a short version of their case studies to their main text. Eventually it was decided that, due to the length of the full text, two related publications would be arranged, one book made up of the country studies and topical studies, and another of the enterprise case studies. The book was published by Edward Elgar: Cooper, R. and Gács, J. (Eds.) (1997) Trade Growth in Transition Economies: Export Impediments for Central and Eastern Europe, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK. The second publication is the present series of case studies.