Employment and Wages in Enterprises Under Communism and in Transition: Evidence from Central Europe and Russia

This paper presents a comparative analysis of employment and wage behavior of firms in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and Russia during the late 1980s to the early 1990s. The four main findings are: 1) There is evidence of some (not excessive) labor hoarding before the transition and it disappeared shortly thereafter; 2) The estimated elasticities of demand grew over the transition, starting from zero in Russia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia and from sizeable levels in Hungary and Poland. By the end of the period, the elasticities for the four East European countries were quite similar and those for Russia had not changed significantly; 3) Once other factors are controlled for, there is no significant difference in the employment behavior among firms by ownership or legal status. However, Czech, Slovak and Polish private firms did pay higher wages than state-owned firms immediately after the start of the transition; 4) A closer examination in the Czech Republic of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and newly established firms indicates that SOEs had lower elasticities of employment and allowed less rent sharing than the newly established firms.