Job Creation, Job Destruction, and Growth of Newly Established, Privatized, and State-Owned Enterprises in Transition Economies: Survey Evidence from Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania

Abstract

This paper reports new and unique firm-level survey evidence to investigate the microeconomic nature of the growth process and structural change in three transition countries, Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary. In particular we investigate gross job creation and destruction in newly established private (de novo) firms and “traditional” ones, both state-owned and privatized firms, and find that thede novoprivate firms are the most dynamic in terms of job creation. After controlling for size and life-cycle effects, we find thatde novoprivate firms consistently outperform the state-owned and privatized enterprises. In addition, we find that state-owned enterprises and privatized firms have on average the same firm-level employment growth.J. Comp. Econom.,September 1998, 26(3), pp. 429–445. University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 9DE, UK; Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven B-3000, Belgium; CEPR, London, UK.