Winners:
Poland
Hungary
Czech Republic
Slovenia
The Baltics
Slovakia

Losers:
Albania
Croatia
Bulgaria
Macedonia
Romania
Yugoslavia
Non-baltic FSU republics
 

WHY?

Most popular explanations are some version of
    Temporal Path Dependence
    Insititutionalism

Meaning, the better off countries chose the right institutions (especially early on), and then continued on this virtuous path

The worse off countries chose the wrong institutions or missed early opportunity to do so (closing off other opportunities to attract FDI, etc., later)

They ask:   What’s the why of the why???

In other words, why did some countries make the right choices and others the wrong ones?

They consider the effects of geography in two senses

First, in the crude model, as distance from the West
    this hypothesis is strongly supported;
    their proximity to West made/makes them candidates for accession to EU and NATO giving strong incentives, coherence to domestic
    choices.; 
    especially important is the "tutoring and monitoring" efforts of the EU

Second, in terms of "neighbor effects"
    They find that even after initial good or bad choices
    Having neighboring countries on a good or bad path can turn things around
    e.g., Slovakia
    Good start 1990-92 then backslides under Meciar;
    However, it's supportive location in CE Europe, surrounded by W countries or countries on a more virtuous path of refrom a country
    allows it to recover from Meciarism very quickly

    Likewise, with Kyrgystan
    Makes some initially favorable changes
    Elects "liberal physicist" Akaev, joins WTO, creates own currency and leaves ruble zone
    But then backslides into autocracy; lacks nukes, gas and oil;
    Gold mining fosters only contact between business classes and highest political elites leading to favoritism, corruption
    Autocratic neighbors manipulated its gas supply as retribution for joining WTO, leaving ruble zone