Introduction and Overview

Abstract

This book is about barriers to entry facing entrepreneurs in early transition. Barriers may be defined in a variety of ways — any factor that increases the unit production cost of the new entrants, or any impediments that imposes a cost on new entrants but not on the incumbents. The main aim of the book is to investigate the nature and impact of barriers to entry in five countries at different stages of transition, with differing development backgrounds and different traditions. The study is based on the experience of new firms in Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Lithuania and Albania — the first three having reached an advanced stage of transition and the latter two having embarked on the transition process later thus lagging behind the front-runners. The study focuses on the legal, fiscal, institutional and financial factors that impede new firm entries and slow down the expansion of newly established firms in each country.

We wish to thank all friends and colleagues who contributed to this project since its inception. The research team in each of five countries consisted of many people who participated in the collection and processing of data and other tasks. They are too many to be named individually but we wish to thank all of them. Our special gratitude goes to Katarzyna Wilary who worked extremely hard, and with patience, over two-year period, preparing the manuscript for publication.