Transition Economics: Two Decades On

Celebrating twenty years of transition, this book is designed to be the core textbook for undergraduate courses in transition economics and comparative economic systems.Treating its subject matter thematically, the book concentrates on transition since the breakdown of the socialist systems. It incorporates much of the transition economics literature that has evolved over the past two decades. In particular, the authors focus on the most important aspects of economic transition, including the initial conditions at the outset of transition, patterns of transition, the paradigms of transition, the main transition policies and economic reforms, the performance of transition countries (and firms) and the lessons from transition. The textbook covers a wide range of both contemporary microeconomic and macroeconomic issues, in over thirty ex-socialist European and Asian countries, including Russia and China.Transition Economics: Two Decades On is more than just a book about a particular part of the world and the transformation that was experienced at a particular time in history. The authors believe that the study of the economics of transition gives the reader an insight into theories, policies, reforms, legacies, institutions, processes and lessons that have application and relevance - beyond the specific transition from plan to market - to other parts of the world and to other times in history.