IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/11174.html

Engineering Ukraine’s Wirtschaftswunder

Author

Listed:
  • Akcigit, Ufuk
  • Kilic, Furkan
  • Lall, Somik V.
  • Shpak, Solomiya

Abstract

As Ukraine emerges from the devastation of war, it faces a historic opportunity to engineer its own Wirtschaftswunder—a productivity-driven economic transformation akin to post-war West Germany. While investment-led growth may offer quick wins, it is efficiency, innovation, and institutional reform that will determine Ukraine’s long-term economic trajectory. Drawing on rich micro-level firm data spanning 25 years, this paper uncovers deep structural distortions that have suppressed creative destruction and productivity in Ukraine. It finds that business dynamism is on the decline, alongside rising market concentration among incumbent businesses, including low productivity state owned enterprises. To inform priorities for reviving business dynamism, this study develops a model of creative destruction drawing on Acemoglu et al. (2018) and Akcigit et al. (2021). The quantitative assessment highlights that policies that discipline entrenched incumbents are the bedrock for reviving business dynamism and engineer Ukraine’s Wirtschaftswunder. Policies targeting specific types of firms have limited efficacy when incumbents run wild.

Suggested Citation

  • Akcigit, Ufuk & Kilic, Furkan & Lall, Somik V. & Shpak, Solomiya, 2025. "Engineering Ukraine’s Wirtschaftswunder," Policy Research Working Paper Series 11174, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11174
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099436507282523261/pdf/IDU-26f31266-4a5a-49e4-bc78-d59c5644d50e.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ryan A. Decker & John Haltiwanger & Ron S. Jarmin & Javier Miranda, 2016. "Declining Business Dynamism: What We Know and the Way Forward," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(5), pages 203-207, May.
    2. Frye, Timothy & Shleifer, Andrei, 1997. "The Invisible Hand and the Grabbing Hand," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 354-358, May.
    3. Rasmus Lentz & Dale T. Mortensen, 2008. "An Empirical Model of Growth Through Product Innovation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(6), pages 1317-1373, November.
    4. Ufuk Akcigit & Harun Alp & André Diegmann & Nicolas Serrano-Velarde, 2023. "Committing to Grow: Privatizations and Firm Dynamics in East Germany," International Finance Discussion Papers 1382, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Maurice Obstfeld, 2026. "You only live twice: Financial inflows and growth in a westward-facing Ukraine," Working Paper Series WP26-1, Peterson Institute for International Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Santiago Caicedo & Jeremy Pearce, 2024. "Need for Speed: Quality of Innovations and the Allocation of Inventors," Staff Reports 1127, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    2. Shigeru Fujita & Giuseppe Moscarini & Fabien Postel-Vinay, 2024. "Measuring Employer-to-Employer Reallocation," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 16(3), pages 1-51, July.
    3. Ville Korpela & Eero Mäkynen & Tuomas Takalo, 2026. "The Price of Knowledge Diffusion: Technology Licensing and Market Power," Discussion Papers 174, Aboa Centre for Economics.
    4. Ufuk Akcigit & Salomé Baslandze & Francesca Lotti, 2023. "Connecting to Power: Political Connections, Innovation, and Firm Dynamics," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 91(2), pages 529-564, March.
    5. Haruyama, Tetsugen, 2025. "A Schumpeterian exploration of Gini and top/bottom income shares," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 29, pages 1-1, January.
    6. J. David Brown & John S. Earle, 2002. "Job Reallocation and Productivity Growth under Alternative Economic Systems and Policies: Evidence from the Soviet Transition," CERT Discussion Papers 0208, Centre for Economic Reform and Transformation, Heriot Watt University.
    7. repec:osf:socarx:qhs6j_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Mori, Tomoya & Sakaguchi, Shosei, 2018. "Collaborative knowledge creation: Evidence from Japanese patent data," MPRA Paper 88716, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Du, Julan & Lu, Yi & Tao, Zhigang, 2012. "Institutions and FDI location choice: The role of cultural distances," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 210-223.
    10. Lawrence King & Patrick Hamm, 2005. "Privatization and State Capacity in Postcommunist Society," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series wp806, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    11. Espen R. Moen, 2008. "Industry Dynamics and Search in the Labor Market," 2008 Meeting Papers 572, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    12. Giuseppe Berlingieri & Maarten De Ridder & Danial Lashkari & Davide Rigo, 2025. "Creative destruction through innovation bursts," CEP Discussion Papers dp2095, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    13. Philippe Rusin, 2007. "Pologne « libérale » versus Pologne « solidaire »," Post-Print halshs-01159197, HAL.
    14. Liu, Bofan & Guo, Ruifei & Shi, Huaqin, 2025. "Digital government and corporate investment: Effects and mechanisms," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    15. Xu, Kefan & Yuan, Peng & Yu, Renjie, 2025. "The effects of mixed ownership reforms on Chinese firms’ emissions," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 191-209.
    16. Parisi, Francesco & Schulz, Norbert & Klick, Jonathan, 2006. "Two dimensions of regulatory competition," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 56-66, March.
    17. Dong, Gang Nathan & Gu, Ming & He, Hua, 2020. "Invisible hand and helping hand: Private placement of public equity in China," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    18. Laurent Cavenaile & Pau Roldan-Blanco, 2021. "Advertising, Innovation, and Economic Growth," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(3), pages 251-303, July.
    19. David M. Byrne & John G. Fernald & Marshall B. Reinsdorf, 2016. "Does the United States Have a Productivity Slowdown or a Measurement Problem?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 47(1 (Spring), pages 109-182.
    20. Salome Baslandze, 2015. "The Role of the IT Revolution in Knowledge Diffusion, Innovation and Reallocation," 2015 Meeting Papers 1488, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    21. Cascarano, Michele & Natoli, Filippo & Petrella, Andrea, 2025. "Entry, exit, and market structure in a changing climate," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E65 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Studies of Particular Policy Episodes
    • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O43 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Institutions and Growth
    • P26 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist and Transition Economies - - - Property Rights

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11174. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.