Transition Economies

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Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the dilution of frontiers between private interests and public policies has attracted growing attention in the literature on post-soviet states. Conversely, in Africa, the related concept of neopatrimonial state is challenged by the continent's unprecedented economic growth and the related images of an emerging region. This special issue is the result of a dialogue between Africanists and specialists of post-soviet states who review and compare key notions of state 'capture', neopatrimonial rule, 'patronal presidentialism', 'pockets of effectiveness' and developmental state. The outcome is a series of innovative contributions on the substance and implications of interactions between personal rule, business and market economies.

Depuis la chute de l'URSS, la réflexion sur la dissolution des frontières entre sphère privée et pouvoir politique a gagné les travaux sur le monde post-soviétique. En Afrique, c'est à l'inverse, la réflexion autour de l’Etat néopatrimonial qui est désormais chahutée par de nouvelles perspectives de croissance et  l’image d’un continent émergent. Fruit d’un dialogue entre Africanistes et spécialistes des Etats post-soviétiques, ce dossier propose une discussion critique des notions de 'capture' de l'Etat, de néopatrimonialisme, de présidentialisme clientélaire, de 'poches d'efficacité' et d'Etat développemental. Il en résulte une réflexion novatrice sur le sens et la portée des interactions entre pouvoir personnel, milieux d'affaires et économie de marché.
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In Brazil, buses represent the main mode of public transportation. However, in recent years intercity and interstate bus companies have been facing a growing competition with other forms of transportation such as bus companies competitors, illegal transportation companies, chartered buses, and, more recently, air companies. In this scenario characterized by growing competition, it is essential to evaluate the quality of road transportation of passengers. In order to contribute to the analysis of this issue, this paper presents a methodological approach to assess the quality of intercity road transportation of passengers, according to the customers’ perspective. By conducting a case study in a city of almost 500,000 inhabitants from the interior of Rio de Janeiro, an Importance–Satisfaction Analysis (ISA) and an assignment procedure were used in order to obtain: (i) the main factors (criteria) that influence the quality of service intercity road transportation of passengers, (ii) the importance degree of criteria related to road transportation of passengers, (iii) the satisfaction of the users of road transportation under the considered criteria, (iv) the critical criteria/items, and (v) the categories which best represent the quality of service intercity road transportation according to the passengers’ perspective. Finally, several possible corrective actions to improve the quality of services considering each critical item/criterion were highlighted and special recommendations were done for the critical process (ticket sales).► Criteria that most influence the quality of intercity road transportation of passengers. ► The importance degree of criteria related to road transportation of passengers. ► The satisfaction degree of passengers of bus road transportation under the criteria. ► The critical criteria of intercity road transportation of passengers. ► Classification of the quality of intercity road transportation.

The article first describes characteristics of major infrastructure projects. Second, it documents a much neglected topic in economics: that ex ante estimates of costs and benefits are often very different from actual ex post costs and benefits. For large infrastructure projects the consequences are cost overruns, benefit shortfalls, and the systematic underestimation of risks. Third, implications for cost–benefit analysis are described, including that such analysis is not to be trusted for major infrastructure projects. Fourth, the article uncovers the causes of this state of affairs in terms of perverse incentives that encourage promoters to underestimate costs and overestimate benefits in the business cases for their projects. But the projects that are made to look best on paper are the projects that amass the highest cost overruns and benefit shortfalls in reality. The article depicts this situation as ‘survival of the unfittest’. Fifth, the article sets out to explain how the problem may be solved, with a view to arriving at more efficient and more democratic projects, and avoiding the scandals that often accompany major infrastructure investments. Finally, the article identifies current trends in major infrastructure development. It is argued that a rapid increase in stimulus spending, combined with more investments in emerging economies, combined with more spending on information technology is catapulting infrastructure investment from the frying pan into the fire.

The focus of this paper is on innovation in terms of the new product development processes and to discuss its main features. This is followed by a presentation of the new ideas emerging from complex systems science. It is then demonstrated how complex systems provides an overall conceptual framework for thinking about innovation and for considering how this helps to provide understanding and advice for the organisation of new product development in different circumstances. Three case studies are quoted which illustrate the application of these new ideas.

Self-financing has often been seen as an important source for research-and-development (R&D) funding. However, an in-depth comparison between the determinants of self-financing in the case of traditional investments versus those in R&D has not been provided yet. We use a comprehensive data set of Italian manufacturing firms to investigate this issue. We analyse the role of a wide number of financial variables in driving the rate of self-financing of firms, in both traditional and R&D investments, and we focus on public subsidies and firm size as critical factors explaining heterogeneity. First, we perform logit and logistic regressions separately for traditional and R&D self-financing, finding that they are positively correlated, and that the availability of public subsidies reduces self-financing. Subsequent poolability tests show that public subsidies and firm size are crucial discriminating factors for self-financing behaviour. Our main finding is that, in the absence of public subsidies, no internal or external market variable is able to explain the firms’ financing decisions. Furthermore, our analyses generally show that credit constraints and banking relationship variables are relevant in determining traditional investment self-financing, while no clear statistical evidence is found in the R&D case. Credit rationing is not significant for R&D self-financing, which may be explained by rationed firms being left out of our sample.