Organizers: Le Centre de recherche sur l’industrie, les institutions et les systèmes économiques d’Amiens, the University of Picardie; and Organisation et efficacité de la production, University of Marne-la-Vallée, with the support of the European Association of Comparative Economic Studies, the East-West Network and the East-West Journal of Economics and Business, the Centre Interuniversitaire d’Etudes Hongroises, and University La Sorbonne nouvelle. (Languages: English, some workshops in French.)

Topics: Postsocialist transformation, including organizational, institutional, and systemic approaches; the state and the new social compromise; monetary and financial institutionalization; nature, boundaries of the firm, and corporate governance; networks, entrepreneurship, and industrial cooperation; institutional dynamics of regional integration (European Union, Far Eastern Asia); and organizational and institutional impact of foreign investment.

The transformation of former socialist economies entailed new organizational dynamics and the emergence of new institutions. Following the emergence of sometimes new, and more or less stable, social forms, these mechanisms of collective action deeply influenced the specific direction of the transition in different countries. After the redistribution of property rights, the implementation of new legal and regulatory frameworks, the sometimes problematic consolidation of financial systems, and the restructuring of enterprises, former and new actors (nomenklatura, foreign investors, entrepreneurs, industrial groups, banks, state agencies, international organizations, employees) participate in the redefinition and sharing of power. They establish relationships and devise organizational approaches that serve as laboratories for testing new rules and methods of coordination.

Analysis of the emergence, development, and stabilization of the new organizational and institutional patterns can contribute to an understanding of the factors that influence the growth pace of these economies, their ability to create virtuous circles, their relationships with the advanced Western economies (competitiveness, regional integration dynamics, and the like), and their monetary and financial strengths, along with the impediments to the transformation process and the characteristics of the late transition countries.

All papers accepted for presentation will be published in a CD-ROM conference proceedings. Selected papers will be published in a special issue of the East-West Journal of Economics and Business.

Transformation, Integration, and Globalization Economic Research
March 14–15, 2002, Warsaw, Poland

The Transformation, Integration, and Globalization Economic Research (TIGER) economic think tank will hold the second round of an international conference on the New Economy and Old Problems: The Prospects for Fast Growth in Transition Economies. The conference will feature almost 20 economists from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the United Nations University/World Institute for Development Economics Research, the London Business School, the Russian and Hungarian Academy of Sciences, China’s National Economic Research Institute, and Poland’s Leon Kozminski Academy of Entrepreneurship and Management. More information about the conference, along with abstracts of the papers, is available on TIGER’s web site at http://www.tiger.edu.pl.

Cultural Legacies of the Soviet Experience
April 26, 2002, Stanford University, U.S.A.

Sponsored by the Center for Russian and East European Studies at Stanford University and the Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies.

International Conference on Globalization and Catching Up in Emerging Market Economies
May 16–17, 2002, Warsaw, Poland

Members of TIGER’s scientific advisory board from Chile, China, India, Israel, Italy, Japan Hungary, Poland, Tanzania, Russia, and the United States will discuss prospects, conditions, and challenges for faster economic growth of emerging market economies. Douglas C. North, 1993 Nobel Laureate in Economics, will deliver the conference’s special lecture. More information about the conference is available on http://www.tiger.edu.pl.

CEPR/WDI Annual International Conference on Transition Economics,
Riga, June 27–30, 2002

Organizer: Baltic International Centre for Economic Policy Studies (BICEPS).

Call for Papers—Deadline Monday, February 25, 2002.

This call for papers invites you to submit a paper proposal for the Annual International Conference on Transition Economics organized by CEPR and WDI and hosted by SITE. The Scientific Organizing Committee for this conference consists of Erik Berglöf (SITE, Stockholm School of Economics, and CEPR), Gérard Roland (ECARES, the Free University of Brussels, CEPR, and WDI), and Jan Svejnar (William Davidson Institute, University of Michigan, CERGE–EI, and CEPR).

Request a submission and reply form from Jessica Mason at CEPR by email at jmason@cepr.org, or by fax on +44 20 7878 2999. All applications must reach CEPR by Monday, February 25, 2002. If you would like to submit a paper, please include a one-page abstract and copy of the paper with your reply form. We will confirm your participation by the end of March 2002.

Spatial Inequality and Development Conference
June 27–29, 2002, London School of Economics, London, U.K.

Organizers: Cornell University, London School of Economics, and the World Institute for Development Economics Research.

Spatial inequality is a dimension of overall inequality, but it has added significance when spatial and regional divisions align with political and ethnic tensions to undermine social and political stability. Also important in the policy debate is a perceived sense that increasing internal spatial inequality is related to greater openness of economies and to globalization in general.

Despite these important popular and policy concerns, remarkably little systematic and coherent documentation of what has happened to spatial and regional inequality over the past 10 to 20 years is available. Correspondingly, understanding of the determinants of internal spatial inequality in a globalizing world is insufficient.

The conference seeks to attract contributions that document and analyze within-country spatial inequality and its determinants, especially during the increased globalization of the last two decades. It will take a broad view of inequality, covering the distribution of such variables as economic activity, economic structure, population, income, social indicators, infrastructure, and public expenditure. While the main focus is on the empirical analysis of recent history, contributions that conceptualize the measurement of spatial inequality or analyze its evolution in a longer historical frame will also be considered.

The papers presented at the conference will be collected in a volume edited by Professor Ravi Kanbur, Cornell University, and Professor Tony Venables, London School of Economics, and published by a leading academic press. Decisions on papers accepted for presentation will be communicated by the end of December 2001.

11th Conference of the International Association for the Economics of Participation: Participation Worldwide
July 4–6, 2002, Catholic University of Brussels, Belgium

Conference themes: The biannual International Association for the Economics of Participation conferences provide an international forum for presenting and debating current research and scholarship on the economics of participation. The major themes of the 2002 conference will be the following: