Research Data from Transition Economies.

This section presents some possible sources for data that can be used for economic analysis. Problems with respect to macroeconomic data occur not in obtaining these data but in using them intelligently. The sources, coverage and quality of macroeconomic data in transition economies have varied dramatically. At the start of transition, for example, the only widely available employment and output figures were taken from firm reports to national statistical offices. These offices were incapable of capturing the thousands of small firms that sprung up with transition. There are also serious problems of access to microeconomic data on individuals and firms from the transition economies. The concept of free access for scholars to publicly collected data is only slowly penetrating. Many countries conduct regular labor force surveys. These surveys have been used to study labor mobility, unemployment duration, wage differentials and wage arrears. Household budget surveys have been used to analyze income inequality, poverty, nutrition and food demand and savings behavior. Data from enterprises in transition economies come from the same basic sources as individual-level data, but the balance across various sources differs.