Inside the Black Box: The Evolution of Internal Labor Markets During Economic Transition in Russian and Ukrainian Firms

我们分析了俄罗斯和乌克兰大型企业在制造业的人事数据，以揭示苏联和后苏联企业在从中央计划经济向市场经济转型期间的内部劳工组织。这标志着研究转型经济体公司详细人事记录的首次尝试。我们已经从一家大型俄罗斯制造公司的1997年至2003年的人事记录中收集了一些数据。这些数据将通过汇编关于工人和职业特征的更多信息加以完善，并通过收集1990年至2008年期间的数据加以扩展。这将使我们能够分析改革期间和转型所有阶段的内部劳动力市场调整。此外，我们还将以类似的格式从另外两家俄罗斯公司和至少一家乌克兰公司收集人事数据。我们是第一个就转型经济体内部劳动力市场的功能提供经验证据的人。作为对西方内部劳动力市场文献的补充，我们将做出至关重要的贡献，建立那些在任何制度环境和任何经济环境中普遍存在的内部劳动力市场模式，以及那些独特的模式。分析企业在转型过程中发生的变化是一种建设性的方法，可以更好地理解大规模重组企业的组织和行为转变。因此，这项实证研究还将为分析转型和其他面临重大结构变化的经济体提供有价值的见解，从而对经济主体和政策制定者都是有用的。

We analyze personnel data of large Russian and Ukrainian firms in the manufacturing sector, in order to shed light on the internal organization of labor in Soviet and Post-Soviet firms during the transition from a centrally planned to a market economy. This marks the first attempt of studying detailed personnel records of firms in transition economies. We have already collected some data from the personnel records of one large Russian manufacturing firm for 1997 through 2003. These data will be refined by compiling additional information on worker and career characteristics and extended by gathering data covering the period from 1990 until 2008. This will allow us to analyze the internal labor market adjustments during perestroika and all stages of transition. In addition, we will collect personnel data in a similar format from two more Russian firms and at least one Ukrainian firm. We are the first to provide empirical evidence on the functioning of internal labor markets in transition economies. Complementing the literature on Western internal labor markets, we will make a crucial contribution by establishing those patterns of internal labor markets that prevail in any institutional setting and any economic environment and those patterns that are idiosyncratic. Analyzing what happens inside firms during transition is a constructive method to better understand the organizational and behavioral shifts in firms that undergo large scale restructuring. Therefore, the empirical study will also provide valuable insights for the analysis of transition and of other economies facing a major episode of structural change and thus will be useful for economic agents as well as for policy makers.