Skip to main content
Fachgebiete
Automobil + Motoren Bauwesen + Immobilien Business IT + Informatik Elektrotechnik + Elektronik Energie + Nachhaltigkeit Finance + Banking Management + Führung Marketing + Vertrieb Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe Versicherung + Risiko
DE
EN
Bücher
Zeitschriften
Themenseiten
Organisationspsychologie Projektmanagement Marketing Smart Manufacturing
Weitere Formate
Podcasts Webinare Technik Webinare Wirtschaft Kongresse Veranstaltungskalender Awards
Jetzt Einzelzugang starten
Zugang für Unternehmen
Referenzkunden
SLX-Digitalkonferenz: Zukunftswerkstatt 2024

Mehr Umsatz mit Top-Kontakten

Am 7. Mai erfahren Sie, wie Vertriebsteams Leadgenerierung, Leadnurturing und Leadstrategien effizient steuern können.
Erweiterte Suche
Anmelden
nach oben

2005 | Buch

The Old Regime and the Opening Balance of Transition Kapitel lesen Erstes Kapitel lesen

Economic Transition in Central Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States

verfasst von: Tomasz Mickiewicz

Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan UK

Buchreihe : Studies in Economic Transition

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Einloggen, um Zugang zu erhalten
insite
SUCHEN

Über dieses Buch

Fifteen years ago, twenty-seven countries in Europe and Central Asia embarked on their economic transition paths. For some, the outcome was a considerable success. Several others are still struggling to shed the inheritance of the past and to correct more recent policy mistakes. Why were post-Communist recessions so long in some countries and growth disappointing? Why was fiscal performance so different? Was democracy a factor, which facilitated reforms or rather slowed them down? This book discusses these questions in the context of new empirical evidence, including a critical examination of the main themes in the economics of transition literature.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

What Happened?

Frontmatter
1. The Old Regime and the Opening Balance of Transition
Abstract
At the beginning of 1989, Europe was a different place. The continent was dominated by the largest country on earth, which no longer exists: the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). It embraced an economic system labelled by different names, ‘command economy’ being one of the more accurate. Yet seventy years earlier, the USSR had replaced another huge empire, Tsarist Russia, which had collapsed in 1917 near the end of the First World War. Later, towards the end of the Second World War, in 1944-5, a command-type economic system was imposed on several European countries — Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the Eastern part of Germany, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania.1 Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were annexed by the USSR and declared Soviet Republics. The remaining countries preserved varying degrees of autonomy, yet with the monopoly of political power guaranteed to local Communist parties.
Tomasz Mickiewicz
2. The Transition Programme: Interdependence between the Key Components
Abstract
Economic transition consists of changing the system of control rights, incentives and information in an economy. The change should result in a better ‘match’ between control rights and residual claims, making the motivation of economic agents consistent with the aim of value maximization. As discussed in Chapter 1, one important element of efficiency relates to flexibility: the producers should adequately respond and adjust to changes (1) in the real structure of costs (scarcity), and (2) in the set of preferences of buyers. However, it is not only the behaviour of producers, but also of other economic agents, that matters: households should be motivated to save instead of hoarding goods, and investors to chose the long-term best value-adding projects.
Tomasz Mickiewicz
3. Stabilization
Abstract
There is a divergence between the short-term and long-term effects of transition, and it is likely that confusion between the two has had implications for policy-making.
Tomasz Mickiewicz
4. Privatization: The Trade-Offs between Speed, Efficiency and Distribution
Abstract
In Chapter 3, we discussed the introduction of a stabilization and liberalization package which may be seen as equivalent to the beginning of the transition. This chapter is devoted to the key dimension of institutional change: privatization. In most countries the process took a long time to implement and is still not complete after fifteen years. In a few others, the initial privatization impulse came fast: yet, at a cost.
Tomasz Mickiewicz
5. Unemployment Paths and Restructuring
Abstract
This chapter focuses on unemployment. The first section will discuss unemployment in the transition economies, looking into flows between alternative labour market states. Subsequently, we shall use this approach to summarize the main factors that may affect unemployment levels. Finally, we shall offer a brief overview of the empirical econometric results on the differences between the labour market characteristics of the ‘old’ and ‘new’ EU member states.
Tomasz Mickiewicz

Why? New Empirical Results

Frontmatter
6. Post-Communist Recessions Re-Examined
Abstract
In this chapter, we wish to explore the determinants of the post-Communist recessions — i.e. the recessions experienced during the 1990s by the twenty-seven countries that emerged from the Soviet Bloc. As will be discussed in this chapter (and again in Chapter 10), most of transition theory focuses on the related but different concept of ‘transitional recession’1— i.e. the recession following the implementation of the liberalization programme.
Tomasz Mickiewicz
7. Liberalization and Public Finance
Abstract
While both liberalization and stabilization were relatively easy to implement (provided the commitment of policy-makers was present), the same cannot be said about fiscal reform. Yet, in the longer run, stabilization is not sustainable without fiscal transformation. And with recurring fiscal destabilization, the positive impact of liberalization is also dampened.
Tomasz Mickiewicz
8. The Order of Financial Liberalization
Abstract
This chapter begins with an overview of the functions of financial intermediation and possible sources of inefficiency in the context of economic transition. We refer to the optimum order of financial liberalization, discussed by McKinnon (1993). We next move to an empirical analysis. First, we test how the transition economies in general, and the two main regions within this group (CIS and non-CIS), differ from other comparator economies along basic financial dimensions. Second, we test how the reforms implemented in the transition countries affected the characteristics of their financial systems, distinguishing between immediate effects and those that came with a time lag. We then draw some brief conclusions.
Tomasz Mickiewicz
9. Democracy and Reform
Abstract
This chapter discusses the link between democracy and reform.
Tomasz Mickiewicz
10. Growth and Transition
Abstract
In this chapter, we discuss the link between reforms and economic growth. It is organized as follows. The chapter opens with a discussion of the general results from the existing literature on the long-term determinants of economic growth. From there, we move to the discussion of published empirical results on factors affecting long- (medium-) term growth in transition economies. We then turn to the existing evidence based on panel data and short-term effects. Subsequently, we focus our attention on criticism by Rzońca and Ciżkowicz (2003), who show that some reported results may be spurious, and offer our own illustration of this issue, supporting their argument. Finally, we present some additional new estimations and draw some brief conclusions.
Tomasz Mickiewicz
Final Remarks
Abstract
Our objective in this book was to investigate empirically some of the key issues featuring in the discussion on economic transition in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. One of the main challenges here is that the key dimension of transition — a set of reforms corresponding to liberalization and institutional change — can be measured only in an imperfect way. We have to accept this as a limitation. Nevertheless, we think that conclusions based on empirical testing — even if imperfect — are better than statements which cannot be falsified. In the latter case, economic theories turn into ideologies; and ideologies, as with any other distorted representations of reality, lead to wrong policies.
Tomasz Mickiewicz
Backmatter
Metadaten
Titel
Economic Transition in Central Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States
verfasst von
Tomasz Mickiewicz
Copyright-Jahr
2005
Verlag
Palgrave Macmillan UK
Electronic ISBN
978-0-230-50434-9
Print ISBN
978-1-349-52086-2
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230504349

Premium Partner

    Bildnachweise