In this paper we look at the growth experience of 25 transition countries during the 25 years since the dissolution of the USSR. We find that compared to expectations from a parsimonious growth model the region in the 2000’s seems normal in terms of growth performance, i.e. transition in the region is over in this respect. Institutions, speed of reform and macro variables fail to show a stable correlation with (conditional) growth when comparing the early and later periods of transition. We also find that the countries in the former Soviet Union (FSU12), doing substantially worse during the 1990’s, in the 2000’s are performing better than the 10 countries that joined the EU in 2004 and 2007 (EU10). This is partly explained by rising fuel prices but also point to strong macro forces of mean reversion. Despite this, the gap between the regions is wider in 2015 than in 1991, emphasizing the challenge of making up for deep crises. Finally, the model analysis suggests that looking forward the main challenge for the FSU12 countries (in particular the non-fuel exporters) is to promote more capital investment whereas the main challenge for EU10 is to increase the productivity of existing factors of production.

中文翻译：

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从异常到正常

在本文中，我们考察了苏联解体以来25年中25个转型国家的增长经验。我们发现，与简约增长模型的预期相比，就增长绩效而言，2000年代该地区似乎是正常的，即该地区的过渡已经结束。比较过渡的早期和后期，制度，改革的速度和宏观变量未能显示出与（有条件的）增长的稳定相关性。我们还发现，前苏联（FSU12）的国家在1990年代表现严重恶化，在2000年代的表现要好于2004和2007年加入欧盟的10个国家（EU10）。燃料价格上涨在一定程度上解释了这一点，但同时也表明了均值回归的强大宏观力量。尽管如此，与1991年相比，2015年该地区之间的差距更大，强调了应对严重危机的挑战。最后，模型分析表明，展望FSU12国家（尤其是非燃料出口国）面临的主要挑战是促进更多的资本投资，而EU10的主要挑战是提高现有生产要素的生产率。