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Aims: The purpose of this study was to determine the international commitment to alcohol-related research relative to its global burden of disease, which is 4% of disability adjusted life years (DALYs). Methods: The worldwide literature indexed in the Science Citation Index® and the Social Sciences Citation Index® during 1992-2003 was analysed using advanced bibliometric techniques. Results: Biomedical research and the global disease burden due to alcohol both increased during 1992-2003, whilst the number of papers from alcohol-related research remained static and declined to <0.7% of all biomedical research literature. Nearly 58% of all alcohol-related research papers were from Canada and the United States, 30% from Western Europe, and 10% from Australia, New Zealand, or Japan. However, these regions suffer only 13% of the global burden of disease due to alcohol; meanwhile, the rest of the world contributed only 8% of the total research whilst suffering from 87% of the disease burden. The estimated annual expenditure on alcohol-related research in 2001 was $730 million, or about $12 per DALY due to alcohol. Conclusions: The global commitment to alcohol-related research is only one-sixth of that warranted by the burden of disease due to alcohol. Most such research is conducted in the developed world but is still less than that appropriate to the regional burden of disease. There is a need for more interest in alcohol-related research in the developing world, particularly in Latin America and Eastern Europe in view of their high burden of disease due to alcohol. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impacts of climate change are unevenly distributed across territories. Less is known about the potential effects of climate policies aimed at mitigating the negative consequences of climate change while transitioning economies towards low-carbon standards. This paper presents an analytical framework for identifying and assessing the regional impacts of the green transition. We develop a Regional Green Transition Vulnerability Index, a composite measure of the regional vulnerability of European regions to the socio-economic reconfigurations prompted by the green transition. The index brings to light strong regional variations in vulnerability, with less developed, peri-urban and rural regions in Southern and Eastern Europe more exposed to the foreseeable changes brought about by the green transition. We also draw attention to the potential rise of pockets of growing 'green' discontent, especially if the green transition contributes, as is likely to be the case, to leaving already left-behind regions further behind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the welfare gains from European trade integration, and the role of comparative advantage in determining the magnitude of those gains. We use a multi-sector Ricardian model implemented on 79 countries, and compare welfare in the 2000s to a counterfactual scenario in which East European countries are closed to trade. For West European countries, the mean welfare gain from trade integration with Eastern Europe is 0.16%, ranging from zero for Portugal to 0.4% for Austria. For East European countries, gains from trade are 9.23% at the mean, ranging from 2.85% for Russia to 20% for Estonia. For Eastern Europe, comparative advantage is a key determinant of the variation in the welfare gains: countries whose comparative advantage is most similar to Western Europe tend to gain less, while countries with technology most different from Western Europe gain the most. - Andrei A. Levchenko and Jing Zhang [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether multinational banks have a stabilizing or a destabilizing role during times of financial distress. With a focus on Europe, it looks at how these banks' foreign affiliates have been faring during the recent financial crisis. It finds that retail and corporate lending of these foreign affiliates has been stable and even increasing between 2007 and 2009. This pattern is related to the functioning of the internal capital market through which these banks funnel funds across their units. The internal capital market has been an effective tool to support foreign affiliates in distress and to isolate their lending from the local availability of financial resources, notwithstanding the systemic nature of the recent crisis. This effect has been particularly large within the EU integrated financial market and for the EMU countries, thus showing complementarity between economic integration and multinational banks' internal capital markets. In light of these findings, this paper supports the call for an integration of the European supervisory and regulatory framework overseeing multinational banks. The analysis is based on an analytical framework which derives the main conditions under which the internal capital market can perform this support function under idiosyncratic and systemic stresses. The empirical evidence uses both aggregate evidence on foreign claims worldwide, and firm-level evidence on the behaviour of banking groups' affiliates, compared to stand-alone national banks. - Giorgio Barba Navaretti, Giacomo Calzolari, Alberto Franco Pozzolo and Micol Levi [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comments on a study of the relative efficiency of industries in Eastern Europe after its economic transformation. Aid to policy making at a time of huge structural change; Indicators of which industries can be most beneficially maintained and expanded.

Eastern Europe suffers from a worsening capital shortage problem. This paper studies ways to find the needed funds. It is argued that firms need funds in order to transform illiquid ideas into liquid claims, possibly through a chain of intermediaries. It shows that collateral (proven assets) plays the central role in increasing liquidity of liabilities and determining the firm's capacity to fund investments. A model is offered to illustrate how firm growth is limited by the net worth of its marketable assets. The analysis is extended to specialized assets for which the liquidation value is less than the ongoing value. The important second variation of intermediation is also examined. A key feature of the intermediation model is that intermediaries themselves are constrained by their net worth. Some lessons are then drawn regarding the status and future of financing in Eastern Europe. The intermediation model suggests that granted the scarcity of capital, financing of investments will have to be more informationintensive: intermediaries will have to take a more active role in monitoring firms. Capital formation is likely to be a slow process, since the capital base is so small. Private investments will be geared towards smaller, safer and shorter-term projects. The logic of liquidity-constrained growth argues for letting small firms carry the brunt of the responsibility for future prosperity in Eastern Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Post-communist health care reforms and the break-up of Czechoslovakia have been studied from various perspectives, but little research has addressed the impact on health system performance. This paper investigates the quality and performance of the Slovak and Czech health systems before and after 1989, including the year of separation in 1993, using the concept of ‘avoidable’ mortality.Methods Age-standardized mortality rates for mortality from ‘avoidable’ and other (non-avoidable) causes have been calculated through indirect standardization to study national and regional trends between 1971 and 2008.Results The paper shows that ‘avoidable’ mortality in both countries has been continuously decreasing while mortality from other causes has remained unchanged or increased slightly. For some ‘avoidable’ conditions, mortality rates of the two countries converge while for others divergence can be observed, with either the Czech Republic or Slovakia performing better.Conclusion Declines in overall ‘avoidable’ mortality suggest improvements in the health system’s performance and quality of care in both countries, compared with mortality from other causes where factors outside the control of the health care system may be stronger determinants. For conditions where ‘avoidable’ mortality rates stagnate or increase, more in-depth research should be carried out to identify problems in the delivery of timely and effective prevention and treatment, and to establish steps that would reduce the numbers of unnecessary deaths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the positive growth effects of financial integration are extensively documented, little is known of its impact on small and young firms. This paper aims to fill this void relying on a panel of 60,000 firm-year observations on listed and unlisted companies in Eastern European economies to assess the differential impact of foreign bank lending on firm growth and financing. Foreign lending stimulates growth in firm sales, assets, and use of financial debt even though the effect is dampened for small firms. More strikingly, young firms benefit most from foreign bank presence, while businesses connected to domestic banks or to the government suffer. Overall, our findings suggest that foreign banks can help to mitigate connected-lending problems and to improve capital allocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eastern Europe's enterprises are undergoing fundamental reform. This paper evaluates alternative forms of corporate restructuring, emphasizing different sequences in which reforms can be organized. In some countries, restructuring is undertaken by the state prior to privatization; in some, restructuring is delegated to private sector institutions before shares are offered to the public at large; and in some, public share offerings are preceding restructuring. The paper develops a general framework for evaluating sequencing, drawing on recent literature on corporate ownership and vertical integration. It points to market failures that are particularly acute during the initial stages of transition. These discourage privatization through wide share ownership and explain why privatization has in practice progressed slowly. The paper examines in some detail restructuring in the one country in which reform has been rapid East Germany. The paper discusses the role of the government, the Treuhandanstalt, the banks, the incumbent management and Western firms in the reform process. It uses the theoretical framework to explain the contributions of public and private sector institutions and considers whether any lessons can be drawn for the design of institutions elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the topics of the April 1992 issue of "Economic Policy." This special issue is entirely devoted to Eastern Europe. It features five papers presented at the 14th Economic Policy Panel Meeting held in Prague, Czech Republic on October 18-19, 1991. One way or another, Western Europe will channel resources to help the East. As different official agencies contemplate the appropriate nature and scale of support, there is renewed interest in the role of the Marshall Plan in Western European reconstruction after World War II.

This paper explores the implications of the rapid internationalization of a small cadre of retail transnational corporations over the last 15 years for supply network structures in a range of economies in Eastern Europe and East Asia. Five sets of ongoing restructuring dynamics are identified: the centralization of procurement, logistical upgrading, supply network shortening and new intermediaries, the imposition of quasi-formal contracts, and the development of private standards. It is suggested that these processes are leading to an ongoing 'shakeout' of the supply base that is favouring relatively large, well-capitalized suppliers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While specific corporate-governance rules are often controversial, most observers agree on the need to disclose who owns and controls a firm and what governance arrangements are in place. This paper examines such disclosure in a sample of 370 companies listed on stock exchanges in Central and Eastern Europe. The data show widespread non-disclosure of even the most basic elements of corporate-governance arrangements, despite existing regulation. The level of disclosure varies substantially across firms, and there is a strong country effect in what companies disclose. Overall, what is disclosed depends on the legal framework and practice in a given country, but it does not correlate with firms' financial performance. On the other hand, financial performance is strongly related with how easily available the information is to the public. In particular, information is more available in larger firms, firms with lower leverage, higher market-to-book ratios, and more concentrated ownership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an event-history analysis of recruitment into the Communist Party between 1945 and 1988 in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, and the Czech and Slovak Socialist Republics. Despite evidence that gender discrimination in Party recruitment processes eased in some of these countries, women remained significantly less likely than men to enter the political arena via the Communist Party across the region. The findings also indicate that class background and parents' political affiliation figured less prominently in Party recruitment processes in Eastern Europe over time. Prior incumbency in a position of authority, including that of supervisor, not only had a positive effect on the odds' of joining the Party but was greater than the effect of prior professional status, indicating that professionals were not especially likely to join the Party in Eastern Europe despite open efforts to recruit technically trained personnel. Education, however, had a large and stable effect on Party recruitment, with the absence of change in the coefficients for education across time suggesting that communist authorities imposed educational criteria on new recruits from their first years in power. Overall, the findings indicate the existence of two paths of entry into the Communist Parties of Eastern Europe, one through educational institutions and the other up the vertical chain of command within the workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microwave sickness (MWS) has been a disputed condition. The syndrome involves the nervous system and includes fatigue, headaches, dysaesthesia and various autonomic effects in radiofrequency radiation workers. This paper describes the early reports of the syndrome from Eastern Europe and notes the scepticism expressed about them in the West, before considering comprehensive recent reports by Western specialists and a possible neurological basis for the condition. It is concluded that MWS is a medical entity which should be recognized as a possible risk for radiofrequency radiation workers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this study, we report 21 ancient shotgun genomes from present-day Western Hungary, from previously understudied Late Copper Age Baden, and Bronze Age Somogyvár–Vinkovci, Kisapostag, and Encrusted Pottery archeological cultures (3,530–1,620 cal Bce). Our results indicate the presence of high steppe ancestry in the Somogyvár–Vinkovci culture. They were then replaced by the Kisapostag group, who exhibit an outstandingly high (up to ∼47%) Mesolithic hunter–gatherer ancestry, despite this component being thought to be highly diluted by the time of the Early Bronze Age. The Kisapostag population contributed the genetic basis for the succeeding community of the Encrusted Pottery culture. We also found an elevated hunter–gatherer component in a local Baden culture–associated individual, but no connections were proven to the Bronze Age individuals. The hunter–gatherer ancestry in Kisapostag is likely derived from two main sources, one from a Funnelbeaker or Globular Amphora culture–related population and one from a previously unrecognized source in Eastern Europe. We show that this ancestry not only appeared in various groups in Bronze Age Central Europe but also made contributions to Baltic populations. The social structure of Kisapostag and Encrusted Pottery cultures is patrilocal, similarly to most contemporaneous groups. Furthermore, we developed new methods and method standards for computational analyses of ancient DNA, implemented to our newly developed and freely available bioinformatic package. By analyzing clinical traits, we found carriers of aneuploidy and inheritable genetic diseases. Finally, based on genetic and anthropological data, we present here the first female facial reconstruction from the Bronze Age Carpathian Basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Western Balkan countries exhibit high levels of alcohol consumption, which constitutes a serious public health concern. We aimed to quantitatively assess the influence of the Europeanization process on levels of alcohol consumption in Western Balkans, an issue that has been under-researched. Methods: The process of Europeanization was defined as the penetration of European dimension, procedures, policy paradigms, beliefs and norms in national arenas of politics and policy development. Data about alcohol consumption in six Western Balkan countries from 1991 to 2011 were gathered from the World Bank and World Health Organization databases. Azerbaijan and Georgia were considered control countries. A difference-in-differences approach was used to assess the impact of Europeanization process on levels of alcohol consumption. Results: The Europeanization process impacts alcohol consumption in Western Balkan countries through the European Union directives and tax policies. After starting the Europeanization process, the spirits consumption in Croatia and The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia decreased by 1.06 litter per capita (95% CI: from -1.63 to -0.49) and 1.02 litter per capita in Serbia (95% CI: from -1.9 to -0.1). Conclusion: Our analysis provides useful evidence about the possible influence of Europeanization process especially on spirits consumption levels in Western Balkans. These findings draw attention to the need to implement new policies in order to prevent alcohol health-related harm due to the possible increase of wine and beer consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the causes of inefficiency in production of enterprises in Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Employment of firm level data to estimate frontier production functions; Evidences of inefficiency in firms; Profitability of firms in reformed economy of Hungary.

The divergent reform experiences of Eastern Europe, the Former Soviet Union (EEFSU), and China raise important questions about the strategy of economic transition. China has grown rapidly since market reforms began in 1978, while Eastern Europe and EEFSU have faces continued economic turmoil and significant declines in output. China's strategy involved a two-track approach: continued state control of state enterprises while permitting growth of a new non-state sector largely outside of state control. This article seeks to identify the basic structural characteristics that underlie the success of the two-track approach in China and its failure in the EEFSU. It also reviews the reform experiences of China and EEFSU during the 1980s and discusses the differences in monetary policy.

We build a dynamic heterogeneous-firm model in which real depreciations raise export demand and the cost of importing intermediates, and also affect borrowing constraints and the profitability of engaging in research and development (R&D). A number of stylized facts on manufacturing firms for a large set of countries discipline our estimation: Firms in emerging East Asia are very export oriented and rely little on imported intermediates, whereas the opposite holds for Latin America and Eastern Europe; firms from industrialized countries export as much as they import. Exporters experience an increase in cash flow, R&D, and productivity growth in response to real exchange rate (RER) depreciations; importers experience the opposite outcomes. In counterfactual simulations of temporary RER movements, the effects on innovation and productivity growth are heterogeneous across regions, sizeable and persistent. In emerging Asia, real depreciations are associated with higher probabilities to engage in R&D, faster growth of average firm-level productivity and cash flow, and higher export entry rates; we find negative average effects on these outcomes for firms in other emerging economies, and no significant average effects for firms in industrialized economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An unprecedented mortality crisis struck Eastern Europe during the 1990s, causing around seven million excess deaths. We enter the debate about the causes of this crisis by performing the first quantitative analysis of the association between deindustrialisation and mortality in Eastern Europe. We develop a theoretical framework identifying deindustrialisation as a process of social disintegration rooted in the lived experience of shock therapy. We test this theory relying on a novel multilevel dataset, fitting survival and panel models covering 52 towns and 42,800 people in 1989–95 in Hungary and 514 towns in European Russia in 1991–99. The results show that deindustrialisation was directly associated with male mortality and indirectly mediated by hazardous drinking as a stress-coping strategy. The association is not a spurious result of a legacy of dysfunctional working-class health culture aggravated by low alcohol prices during the early years of the transition. Both countries experienced deindustrialisation, but social and economic policies have offset Hungary's more immense industrial employment loss. The results are relevant to health crises in other regions, including the deaths of despair plaguing the American Rust Belt. Policies addressing the underlying causes of stress and despair are vital to save lives during painful economic transformations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The diaries of the teenage girls Renia Spiegel (Poland), Rutka Laskier (Poland), Sheindi Miller-Ehrenwald (Hungary), Ana Novac (Romania), Éva Heyman (Romania/Hungary), Masha Rolnikaite (Lithuania) and Helga Weiss (Czechoslovakia) share several characteristics. They were all written by diarists who were of Jewish origin; lived in Central and Eastern Europe; and were persecuted, intimidated, and deported to a ghetto and/or concentration camp. Some of the diarists were murdered by the National Socialists. To cope with their traumatic experiences, the girls risked their lives by entrusting their thoughts, fears, and insights to their diaries. In this study, these individual authors are not seen as passive victims, but rather—despite their young age—as eyewitnesses, chroniclers, and cultural resistance fighters. Regardless of the subjectivity and childish or adolescent perspective from which they were written, their works are valued and understood as important historical documents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction. In the last decade of the 20th century, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have experienced rapid changes in health policies. This process was largely supported by international grants. After this support has ended, it is important to keep up with the development, developing its own strategies and priorities. Aims and methods. The aim of the paper is to make a proposal for the future development of the discipline in CEE countries. The proposal is based on reports on an invitational conference that was organized for the key representatives of family medicine from CEE countries. For the purpose of this paper, additional information about the situation was gathered from literature reviews, country visits and personal interviews. Results. Information shows that although family medicine has been formally recognized and introduced in university curricula, there is a very big difference in its academic position. Postgraduate training has been established in all CEE countries, according to the European Directive. Quality measures such as the development and implementation of guidelines and the re-certification procedure have also been formally introduced, but its quality varies. The key areas of concern are atomization of practices, unsatisfactory payment systems, lack of academic infrastructure and unsatisfactory continuous professional development. On the other hand, examples of good practice exist and need to be promoted. Conclusion. There is a need for continuous exchange of expertise within the countries. The paper will serve as a discussion paper for the next meeting of experts from CEE countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the night of July, 6, 1941, under the cover of darkness, a group of Ukrainian assailants armed with bats, shovels, and other weapons attacked their Jewish neighbors in Tuchyn, a small town just outside of Rivne, killing dozens and wounding more. Through the testimony of perpetrators, victims, and local witnesses, this article not only reestablishes the events leading up to, during, and following the pogrom against Tuchyn's Jews, but also provides biographical sketches of the local perpetrators and those in the community who enabled it. While there has been increasingly sophisticated work on the summer 1941 pogroms in Eastern Europe, scholars have yet to identify and thoroughly analyze local participants. From a deeper probe into local perpetrators' organizational affiliations, social networks, and their place in the quickly changing and dynamic political situation, this article questions the analytical categories we use to frame local perpetrators, as well as the pogroms. In doing so it offers new insights on the participants, while demonstrating the possibilities for new more dynamic avenues for future research on pogrom violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Support for economic reforms has often shown puzzling dynamics: many reforms that began successfully lost public support. We show that learning dynamics can rationalize this paradox because the process of revealing reform outcomes is an example of sampling without replacement. We show that this concept challenges the conventional wisdom that one should begin by revealing reform winners. It may also lead to situations in which reforms that enjoy both ex ante and ex post majority support will still not come to completion. We use our framework to explain why gradual reforms worked well in China (where successes in Special Economic Zones facilitated further reform), whereas this was much less the case for Latin American and Central and Eastern European countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Craft exhibitions were one of the major forms of cultural and economic exchange among socialist countries, a key feature of friendship exchanges that mapped Cold War alliances at mid‐century. This essay examines the implications of craft exhibitions exported between China and her 'brother' nations, especially in Eastern Europe. Export exhibitions enabled the circulation of objects, craftspeople, and students, and trod a grey zone between art and industry, mutual cultural appreciation, and mutual economic dependency. Promoting craft as the epitome of socialist culture's diversity also questioned Soviet hegemony over the forms associated with high state culture, opening the way for other routes of formal experimentation and abstraction. Mapping craft exhibitions underscores how the socialist valorization of the 'folk' was not solely an enterprise of national identity, but construed as part of a crafted internationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the transformation of memory regarding Soviet crimes in Lithuania, and more broadly in the Baltics and Eastern Europe, as an interlinked political and legal process. In the Lithuanian context, this transformation was part of a transitional justice effort that resulted in the recovery of European identity and international legal recognition of Soviet genocide against Lithuanian partisans by the European Court of Human Rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disenchantment with global finance in Central-Eastern Europe enabled financial nationalism to emerge as a counter-hegemonic strategy. In Hungary, Prime Minister Orbán put forth his explicit aim to increase domestic ownership in banking to over 50% and legitimized the ensuing re-nationalization of the financial sector with resentment over neoliberal banking practices. The article describes how the financial crisis created an opportunity for Orbán and his allies to usher in a new era of financial ownership structures. It provides a critical political economy analysis of how the Orbán government selected economic sectors to target and how it used a network of associated private actors in its quest to re-nationalize and then re-privatize major banks to a newly created elite, the 'national capitalists'. In this, financial nationalism constituted a grand strategy to reconstruct Hungarian capitalism in order to regain autonomy and assure long-term political survival within a liberal EU context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Roma are Europe's largest minority group and face extensive discrimination across the continent. Drawing on a survey of Roma and non-Roma households in twelve Central and Eastern European countries, we analyze the extent to which legal cynicism, as a cognitive frame, is connected to the avoidance of helpful social institutions. We thus expand existing research on legal cynicism to focus on individuals' contacts with potentially helpful institutions that can buffer inequality. We conclude that the interplay of legal cynicism and system avoidance, which have provided deep insights into the reproduction of structural disadvantage in American cities, also provide us with international insights into the causes of inequality and minority disadvantage across hundreds of towns in Central and Eastern Europe. In this way, legal cynicism and system avoidance work to reproduce durable inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background The COVID-19 pandemic might impact substance use behaviours around the globe. In this study, we investigate changes in alcohol and tobacco use in the second half of 2020 in countries of the eastern part of the WHO European Region. Methods Self-reported changes in alcohol and tobacco use among 11 295 adults from 18 countries in the eastern part of the WHO European Region were collected between August 2020 and January 2021. The non-probabilistic sample was weighted for age, gender and education. For each country, proportions of respondents reporting a decrease, no change or increase in substance use over the past 3 months were examined, and multinomial regression models were used to test associations with age, gender and past-year alcohol use. Results In most countries, about half of the respondents indicating past-year alcohol or tobacco use reported no change in their substance use. Of those alcohol users who reported changes in their alcohol use, a larger proportion reported a decrease than an increase in most countries. The opposite was true for tobacco use. Women, young adults and past-year harmful alcohol users were identified as being more likely to change their substance use behaviour. Conclusion We found diverging overall trends for alcohol and tobacco use in the second half of 2020. The patterns of change vary according to age, gender and past-year substance use. Individuals at risk to increase their substance use during the COVID-19 pandemic require most policy considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey for the period 2000-2004 we investigate poverty trends in Russia. We find that urban poverty declines at twice the rate of rural poverty so that by 2004 poverty in Russia had become a largely rural phenomenon for the first time since transition began. This finding does not stem from changing population characteristics or shares, is not dependent on the use of a particular poverty line nor is it driven by the rapid expansions that have occurred in Moscow, St Petersburg or other urban areas. Our findings flesh out those of Ravallion and colleagues, who, in contrast to other regions, 'find signs' of a ruralisation of poverty in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. We attribute some of the differential to the labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New technologies can become an identity-challenging threat for organizations. While there is a growing literature on how new technologies challenge fundamental questions of organizational existence such as 'who are we?', 'what do we do?', and 'what do we want to be?', this literature has largely overlooked how new technologies can become drivers of organizational identity change. In this article, we investigate the impact of digitalization, especially Robotic Process Automation, on organizational identity. Drawing on the analysis of shared service centers in Asia and Eastern Europe, we explored how these organizations respond to identity-challenging technologies. While traditionally, work in shared services has been characterized by a combination of standardization, controlling the labor process, and deskilling, we found in this study that shared service organizations are responding to the digital challenges by moving up the value chain to more complex, knowledge-intensive work. As a result, shared service organizations in our study began to redefine their organizational identity by, among others, professionalizing their workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Variations in the age patterns and magnitudes of excess deaths, as well as differences in population sizes and age structures, make cross-national comparisons of the cumulative mortality impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic challenging. Life expectancy is a widely used indicator that provides a clear and cross-nationally comparable picture of the population-level impacts of the pandemic on mortality.Methods: Life tables by sex were calculated for 29 countries, including most European countries, Chile and the USA, for 2015-2020. Life expectancy at birth and at age 60 years for 2020 were contextualized against recent trends between 2015 and 2019. Using decomposition techniques, we examined which specific age groups contributed to reductions in life expectancy in 2020 and to what extent reductions were attributable to official COVID-19 deaths.Results: Life expectancy at birth declined from 2019 to 2020 in 27 out of 29 countries. Males in the USA and Lithuania experienced the largest losses in life expectancy at birth during 2020 (2.2 and 1.7 years, respectively), but reductions of more than an entire year were documented in 11 countries for males and 8 among females. Reductions were mostly attributable to increased mortality above age 60 years and to official COVID-19 deaths.Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic triggered significant mortality increases in 2020 of a magnitude not witnessed since World War II in Western Europe or the breakup of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe. Females from 15 countries and males from 10 ended up with lower life expectancy at birth in 2020 than in 2015. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Documenting genome diversity is important for the local biomedical communities and instrumental in developing precision and personalized medicine. Currently, tens of thousands of whole-genome sequences from Europe are publicly available, but most of these represent populations of developed countries of Europe. The uneven distribution of the available data is further impaired by the lack of data sharing. Recent whole-genome studies in Eastern Europe, one in Ukraine and one in Russia, demonstrated that local genome diversity and population structure from Eastern Europe historically had not been fully represented. An unexpected wealth of genomic variation uncovered in these studies was not so much a consequence of high variation within their population, but rather due to the "pioneer advantage." We discovered more variants because we were the first to prospect in the Eastern European genome pool. This simple comparison underscores the importance of removing the remaining geographic genome deserts from the rest of the world map of the human genome diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a growing historiography on Holocaust survivors, few scholars have focused on the fates of those who returned to their places of origin in Poland in the immediate aftermath of World War II. Even less is known about those who attempted to recover their property in medium-sized Polish cities in the late 1940s. The following article analyzes court cases in two such cities: Kalisz (in the former German territorial administration of the Warthegau) and Radom (the former General Government). By addressing the problems related to the appropriation and recovery of Jewish private property, the author sheds light on the agency of Holocaust survivors and the social processes that shaped postwar Central and Eastern Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent reforms across Eastern European countries have given more flexibility and information to parties to engage in secured debt transactions. The menu of assets legally accepted as collateral was enlarged to include movable assets (e.g., machinery and equipment). Generalized difference-in-differences tests show that firms operating more movable assets borrowed more as a result. Those firms also invested more, hired more, and became more efficient and profitable following the changes in the contracting environment. The financial deepening we document triggered important reallocation effects: firms affected by the reforms increased their share of fixed assets and employment in the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Groups that have experienced collective suffering are sometimes more sympathetic toward outgroups, while other times they display higher outgroup prejudice. What can account for these contradictory observations? This study uses a unique historical episode of forced displacement to examine how perceptions of recognition of the ingroup's victimhood affect views toward outgroups. We collect data on descendants of ethnic Germans ousted from Central and Eastern Europe after the end of World War II, and examine their attitudes toward Syrian refugees today. Both observational data and an experiment are used to test the role of victimhood recognition. When they learn that their suffering is acknowledged by more Germans than they expected, descendants of expellees become more positive toward refugees. Interestingly, this effect is not symmetric. When recognition of suffering is revealed to be lower than respondents' expectations, their sympathy toward refugees does not decrease. This effect is not present among respondents without a family background of forced expulsion. Additional evidence documents the underlying mechanism at work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Hypertension is a risk factor for a number of vascular and cardiac complications. A Markov like simulation based on cardiovascular disease (CVD) policy model is being used for evaluating cost-effectiveness of hypertension treatment. Stroke, angina, myocardial infarction (MI), cardiac arrest and all-cause mortality were only included CVD outcome variables in the model. Therefore this systematic review was conducted to evaluate completeness of CVD policy model for evaluation of cost-effectiveness across different regions. Key findings: Fourteen cohort studies involving a total of 1 674 773 hypertensive adult population and 499 226 adults with treatment resistant hypertension were included in this systematic review. Hypertension is clearly associated with coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke mortality, unstable angina, stable angina, MI, heart failure (HF), sudden cardiac death, transient ischemic attack, ischemic stroke, sub-arachnoid hemorrhage, intracranial hemorrhage, peripheral arterial disease (PAD), and abdominal aortic aneurism (AAA). Lifetime risk of developing HF is higher among hypertensives across all ages, with slight variation among regions. Treatment resistant hypertension is associated with higher relative risk of developing major CVD events and mortality when compared with the non-resistant hypertension. Summary: The CVD policy model can be used in most of the regions for evaluation of cost-effectiveness of hypertension treatment. However, hypertension is highly associated with HF in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Therefore, it is important to consider HF in CVD policy model for evaluating cost-effectiveness of hypertension treatment in these regions. We do not suggest the inclusion of PAD and AAA in CVD policy model for evaluating cost-effectiveness of hypertension treatment due to lack of sufficient evidence. Researchers should consider the effect of treatment resistant hypertension either through including in the basic model or during setting the model assumptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a methodology which makes it possible to rank industrial branches in Eastern Europe according to various measures of competitiveness. Effects of existing distortions; Revaluation of inputs and outputs using world market prices; Estimation of social profitability.

Examines the role of fiscal policies in macroeconomic stabilization in eastern Europe. Sustainability of fiscal policies for transition economies; Implications of tight fiscal policies on the success of inflation stabilization programs; Establishment of current account convertibility; Comparison of the fiscal policies of Poland and Romania; Policy recommendations for other economies in transition.

The economies that we are concerned with here fall somewhere between the two extremes of a very traditional centrally planned economy and a well-established market-type economy. In this paper, much of the more detailed discussion concerns Hungary, largely because it is the economy which has already moved furthest towards a market-type economy. Changing an economic system, even one that is performing poorly, is always a difficult and risky undertaking. In the Eastern European countries, where central planning has generated rather high growth rates of gross output in the past, accompanied by much slower improvements in living standards (as evidenced by the widening gap between East and West in Europe), it has taken some time for outside observers, as well as local political elites and the general population in Eastern Europe to appreciate that the old. Soviet-type system for running the economy had run out of steam. But there is now widespread acceptance of the need for fundamental change, fuelled by actual declines in living standards in the 1980s in several countries, by an increase awareness of the severity of the debt crisis especially in Hungary and Poland (but also now in Bulgaria), and by easier travel to the West making people more conscious of the achievements of more productive economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper conceptualizes the political economy of the Soviet bloc in terms of concepts used to describe ‘classic dependence’ and ‘dependent development’ in the capitalist periphery. In particular, the rapid economic growth that occurred in Eastern Europe between the mid-1950s and mid-1970s can be termed ‘dependent development’ because the primary stimulus for it came from an external dominator (the Soviet Union) and because the process of economic growth and structural transformation made Eastern Europe more dependent economically upon the USSR and created ‘class linkages’ of common interest between the Soviet and East European elites. Dependent development of the Soviet bloc was also analogous to the Western case in that, despite initial successes, it ultimately created major economic, political, and social ‘contradictions’-which seemingly can only be resolved by a radical structural transformation. In addition to such similarities between ‘capitalist’ and ‘socialist’ dependency, there are several important differences as well that evidently derive from the fact that dependency relationships are more ‘political’ in the Soviet bloc and more `economic' in the capitalist world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to provide information about unemployment, labor markets and structural change in Eastern Europe. It addresses the mediating role of labor markets and unemployment in the transforming economies. Section one presents the introduction. Section two summarizes the current labor market situation and the debate on the nature of unemployment in these countries. In section three, it analyzes equilibrium unemployment and vacancies and interprets their evolution in Eastern Europe in the past three years. Section four reviews labor market institutions, making cross-country comparisons. Section five explores policy implications. Finally, it presents tentative forecasts for equilibrium unemployment rates and long-term unemployment. Section 6 provides conclusions.

This article studies the Jewish culture of Eastern Europe which was not possible earlier because of the wartime conditions. This paper is a report from the section studying East European Jews of the Columbia University project, Research in Contemporary Cultures. The article employs some standard procedures of cultural anthropology, draws upon some methods of clinical psychology and has developed some additional lines of research. The article attempts to study the doctrines of a Covenant regarded as sacred orders by the Jews. The indivisibility of secular and religious pursuits within the Jewish community are also studied in depth. Terms like "Tora," which is accorded like God's law is also highlighted in the article. The author of the article says that the Tora is the ultimate authority for any aspect of shtetl life. Its rules and maxims include six hundred and thirteen mitsvos or Divine Commandments, handed down by Moses, and these--with later interpretations and elaborations by the Sages--form the only conceivable basis of behavior for the traditional Jew.

This article studies the persistence of a large, unexpected and regionally very unevenly distributed population shock, the inflow of eight million ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe to West Germany after World War II. Using detailed census data from 1939 to 1970, we show that the shock proved persistent within local labor markets, but was largely reversed between labor markets. These results show that the choice of spatial units can significantly affect the estimated persistence of population shocks. They can thus help to explain why previous studies on the persistence of population shocks reached conflicting conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What determines whether or not multinational firms transplant the mode of organisation to other countries? We embed the theory of knowledge hierarchies in an industry equilibrium model of monopolistic competition to examine how the economic environment may affect the decision of multinational firms about transplanting the mode of organisation to other countries. We test the theory with original and matched parent and affiliate data on the level of decentralisation of 660 Austrian and German multinational firms and 2,200 of their affiliate firms in Eastern Europe. We find that market competition in both home and host markets is an important driver of organisational transfer to host countries: an increase in competition in the home (host) market by ten percentage points lowers (increases) the probability of transplanting by nine (seven) percentage points. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The smoking epidemic greatly affected mortality levels and trends, especially among men in low-mortality countries. The objective of this article was to examine similarities and differences between sexes and low-mortality countries in the mortality imprint of the smoking epidemic. This will provide important additions to the smoking epidemic model, but also improve our understanding of the differential impact of the smoking epidemic, and provide insights into its future impact.Methods: Using lung-cancer mortality data for 30 European and four North American or Australasian countries, smoking-attributable mortality fractions (SAMF) by sex, age (35-99), and year (1950-2014) were indirectly estimated. The timing and level of the peak in SAMF35-99, estimated using weighting and smoothing, were compared.Results: Among men in all countries except Bulgaria, a clear wave pattern was observed, with SAMF35-99 peaking, on average, at 33.4% in 1986. Eastern European men experienced the highest (40%) and Swedish men the lowest (16%) peak. Among women, SAMF35-99 peaked, on average, at 18.1% in 2007 in the North American/Australasian countries and five Northwestern European countries, and increased, on average, to 7.5% in 2014 in the remaining countries (4% in Southern and Eastern Europe). The average sex difference in the peak is at least 25.6 years in its timing and at most 22.9 percentage points in its level.Conclusions: Although the progression of smoking-attributable mortality in low-mortality countries was similar, there are important unexpected sex and country differences in the maximum mortality impact of the smoking epidemic driven by cross-country differences in economic, political, and emancipatory progress.Implications: The formal, systematic, and comprehensive analysis of similarities and differences between sexes and 34 low-mortality countries in long-term time trends (1950-2014) in smoking-attributable mortality provided important additions to the Global Burden of Disease study and the descriptive smoking epidemic model (Lopez et al.). Despite a general increase followed by a decline, the timing of the maximum mortality impact differs more between sexes than previously anticipated, but less between regions. The maximum mortality impact among men differs considerably between countries. The observed substantial diversity warrants country-specific tobacco control interventions and increased attention to the current or expected higher smoking-attributable mortality shares among women compared to men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To determine the spread of ESBLs and carbapenemases in Enterobacterales and Pseudomonas aeruginosa in Europe.Methods: 45 335 Gram-negative bacilli were collected in 18 European countries as part of the International Network for Optimal Resistance Monitoring (INFORM) global surveillance programme from 2013 to 2017. Antimicrobial susceptibility was determined using broth microdilution, and 9546 isolates were screened for β-lactamase genes by PCR and sequencing.Results: ESBLs were identified in 35.5% of Klebsiella pneumoniae and 18.5% of Escherichia coli. ESBL carriage was lowest among isolates in Northern/Western Europe and highest in Eastern Europe. CTX-M-15 was the dominant ESBL in all countries except Greece, where SHV-type ESBLs were more common. Carbapenemases (KPC, OXA-48-like, GES, NDM and VIM) were found in 3.4% of Enterobacterales and were most common among K. pneumoniae (10.5% of those collected). Carbapenemase carriage was lowest in Northern/Western and highest in Southern Europe. KPC-positive Enterobacterales were most abundant but the percentages of OXA-48-like-, NDM- and VIM-positive isolates increased over time and were correlated with an increase in meropenem non-susceptibility. Carbapenemases (VIM, IMP, NDM and GES) were also identified in 5.1% of P. aeruginosa and were commonly found in Eastern Europe. Carbapenemase carriage and meropenem non-susceptibility among P. aeruginosa fluctuated over the 5 years studied and were not well correlated.Conclusions: ESBL and carbapenemase carriage varied by species and European subregion. Meropenem non-susceptibility in European isolates of Enterobacterales can be attributed to carbapenemase carriage and is increasingly caused by MBLs and OXA-48-like carbapenemases. Carbapenemases or other β-lactamases are not a common cause of meropenem non-susceptibility in P. aeruginosa in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the long-run impact of a migration barrier on regional development. The analysis is based on the large-scale expulsion of Germans from Central and Eastern Europe after World War II (WWII). Expellees were not allowed to resettle in the French occupation zone in the first years after the War while there was no such legislation in the other occupation zones (USA; UK; Soviet Union). The temporary migration barrier had long-lasting consequences. In a nutshell, results of a Difference-in-Difference (DiD) analysis show that growth of population and population density were significantly lower even 60 years after the removal of the barrier if a region was part of the French occupation zone. There was a common trend in regional development before the migration barrier became effective. Further analyses suggest that this pattern is driven by different population dynamics in agglomerated areas. The article discusses implications for spatial theory namely whether location fundamentals, agglomeration theories or both affect the spatial equilibrium under certain conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comments on a critique of the author's study on industrial efficiency in Eastern Europe. Central points on the critique; Difference of analysis.

Since the completion of the Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer mission (GOCE), global gravity models of uniform quality and coverage are available. We investigate their potential of being useful tools for estimating the thermal structure of the continental lithosphere, through simulation and real-data test in Central-Eastern Europe across the Trans-European Suture Zone. Heat flow, measured near the Earth surface, is the result of the superposition of a complex set of contributions, one of them being the heat production occurring in the crust. The crust is enriched in radioactive elements respect to the underlying mantle and crustal thickness is an essential parameter in isolating the thermal contribution of the crust. Obtaining reliable estimates of crustal thickness through inversion of GOCE-derived gravity models has already proven feasible, especially when weak constraints from other observables are introduced. We test a way to integrate this in a geothermal framework, building a 3-D, steady state, solid Earth conductive heat transport model, from the lithosphere–asthenosphere boundary to the surface. This thermal model is coupled with a crust-mantle boundary depth resulting from inverse modelling, after correcting the gravity model for the effects of topography, far-field isostatic roots and sediments. We employ a mixed space- and spectral-domain based forward modelling strategy to ensure full spectral coherency between the limited spectral content of the gravity model and the reductions. Deviations from a direct crustal thickness to crustal heat production relationship are accommodated using a subsequent substitution scheme, constrained by surface heat flow measurements, where available. The result is a 3-D model of the lithosphere characterised in temperature, radiogenic heat and thermal conductivity. It provides added information respect to the lithospheric structure and sparse heat flow measurements alone, revealing a satisfactory coherence with the geological features in the area and their controlling effect on the conductive heat transport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]