Job Reallocation and Productivity Growth in the Ukrainian Transition

Authors

J. David Brown, Heriot-Watt UniversityFollow
John S. Earle, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment ResearchFollow

Series

Upjohn Institute Working Paper No. 04-104

**Published Version**

In Comparative Economic Studies 48(2): 229-251

DOI

10.17848/wp04-104

Issue Date

September 2004

Abstract

We analyze the pace and patterns of job reallocation in Ukraine using 1992-2000 panel data on nearly the surviving universe of manufacturing firms inherited from the Soviet Union. Employment growth displays substantial increase in heterogeneity during this transition period, with a corresponding rise in excess job reallocation. Unlike data for Soviet Russia in the 1980s, Ukrainian job reallocation in the 1990s was clearly productivity-enhancing, both within and cross industries. The paper also estimates the effects of firm and market characteristics on the magnitude of reallocation and on the extent to which it has contributed to aggregate productivity growth.

Sponsorship

Data collection was supported by a grant from Economic Research and Outreach Center (EROC) at the Kiev School of Economics. This paper is part of a larger project funded by the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research on employment reallocation in Hungary, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine, and the U.S. State Department (through a grant administered by the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan Business School) for support of analysis.

Subject Areas

INTERNATIONAL ISSUES; International labor comparisons; Transition economies