2011 marks the twentieth anniversary of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the acceleration of political and economic transitions in what had been called the Soviet bloc. Perhaps ironically, this anniversary coincides with...
The MDGs are at the heart of the international development agenda. Are they relevant to the CIS? The answer is yes, but some adaptation to national circumstances is needed.
Are the states that make up the Europe and the CIS facing challenges of transition or development? It is clear that some of the critiques of transition suffer from the failure to make this distinction.
If transitions may begin incrementally as a long-term process, or can be triggered by some sudden revolutionary eruption, we can view their ending in similar terms.
Is the challenge of economic transition specific and different from economic development? How has the transition experience enriched development economics? Which policy mistakes could have been avoided?
Two percent of the population of Central and Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union were poor in 1988; by 1998 the figure was 20 percent. Why is there an awful inevitability about such an outcome?
The reason for the demise of socialism was the failure of socialist economies to keep productivity growth on par with western economies. What the socialist world lacked was market institutions, which take time to emerge.
