Since 1999, the region’s economies have amassed some of the world’s best growth performances. But this rapid expansion has not been matched by commensurate improvements in relative poverty.
Privatisation plays a central role in transition economies. The bigger question is whether privatisation has enhanced company performance and improved economic growth.
To make the market work, the recipe calls for institutions. The difficulty is, they are almost invisible where they work, and hard to transplant. The good news is the ingredient seems to be self-raising.
In the 1990s, transition economies experienced both the privatisation of state companies and the creation of stock markets. But the paths that transition economies have taken towards sounder capital markets are far from...
Economic growth is desirable in part because it generates employment. In some countries in the Western Balkans, however, the economic recoveries of the last few years have not succeeded in cutting the jobless rate.
Ukraine’s strong economic recovery of 2000-2004 stalled in 2005. Now a new set of reforms are needed in the areas of macroeconomic policy, improving the investment climate, and streamlining public administration.
The political revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe and the USSR were fuelled by the desire to replace the previous command economy with a market one. But did Western economists succeed in influencing policy?
