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Access to health care is considered a public right in European countries. The transition to democracy in Central and Eastern Europe has introduced new medical technology, equipment, and medication, while at the same time exposing and even deepening the shortcomings inherited from the old Semashko systems. The "tradition" of informal payments is one of the features passed from the old regime and which has continued to expand after 1989. Reforming health care systems in post-communist Europe has proven to be very difficult. The lack of a unified European health care policy meant that the European Union could exercise little pressure on candidate countries to reform and combat corruption in their health care systems. This paper examines the extent and use of informal payments in health care systems of Central and Eastern European countries and assesses the institutional strategies designed to reform the system. The results show that informal payments are common practice in most countries with important consequences for people's health. Additionally, the analysis shows that reforms were impeded by the lack of a clear vision, high turnover of Ministers of Health, insufficient funding, and lack of political will. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A number of commentators have noted the weakness and/or liberal nature of labor institutions in the new EU member states of eastern Europe. This paper examines some additional evidence of that weakness, as well as the correspondence of labor policy with other policy areas, specifically pensions and tax policy. It then explores possible mechanisms through which the liberal nature of these policies might influence the previously existing member states of western Europe. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global imbalances peaked at more than 6 percent of world GDP in 2006 but subsequently fell to around 3 percent of world GDP by 2011. Housing markets in Eastern Europe suffered the full brunt of this ?capital flow cycle?: they experienced real estate bonanzas when capital was flowing in, followed by property busts when capital flows reversed. We examine the impact of this capital flow cycle on fiscal policy preferences in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Our argument is that home equity is a form of self-insurance against income loss that can substitute for government-provided social insurance. Therefore, during the ?bonanza? phase of the cycle, when capital inflows were large and housing prices were rising, we expect CEE voters to respond by demanding both lower taxes and less publicly-provided social insurance. When capital flows reversed and real estate markets went from boom to bust, we expect CEE voters to become more favorable to redistributive taxation and social insurance. We evaluate these claims with evidence from the EBRD?s ?Life in Transition? Surveys (LiTS), using the wave administered in late 2006 (LiTS I) to assess fiscal preferences during the bonanza, and the wave conducted in late 2010 (LiTS II) to assess how preferences had changed after the bust. We find consistent evidence that mortgage-holders? fiscal preferences reversed between 2006 and 2010, shifting from right (opposed to redistribution) to left (in support of redistribution) as capital flows drove housing prices first up and then down. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Now that the European Union has expanded to include ten new member states, the transformation of industrial relations in postcommunist eastern Europe has become increasingly important, not least for the future of the European "social model." Following the varieties of capitalism literature, which divides advanced capitalist economies into coordinated and liberal market models, we examine labor relations in eastern Europe to determine which of the types they most approximate. We then find that, despite the rigidities of the communist era, nine of the ten postcommunist (new and prospective) member states are much closer to the liberal than the coordinated types, and that they are also far from the European social model. Again following the varieties of capitalism approach, we find that the likelihood that the eastern European countries will converge or harmonize toward existing European labor and social standards to be unlikely. Rather, it seems more likely that the liberal approach of the new member states will push the European social model towards further liberalization. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]