The market meets its match : restructuring the economies of Eastern Europe
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The market meets its match : restructuring the economies of Eastern Europe
Harvard University Press, c1994
Available at 31 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Bibliography: p. [225]-241
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Under free-market shock therapy, the economies of Eastern Europe have plunged into crisis. Shortages may have disappeared, but so have social services, a living wage, and equitable income distribution. Political unrest increases apace as output plummets. The questions as to why so much stagnation, inflation and de-industrialization have occured, and what can be done to turn this risky state of affairs around, must be addressed. In this critique of the free-market economic policies that have shocked Eastern Europe, such questions are examined in detail. The authors also propose a more sensible approach to reform, including a restructuring of the state itself so that it can play a more positive role in this difficult transition. With close attention to the history and institutional realities of the region, this book explains the failure of the simplistic market medicine administered in the first five years of transition.
Merely "getting the prices right" - lowering wages and raising interest rates and energy prices - won't improve competitiveness, the authors argue, as long as non-labour costs such as the quality of goods, product design, outmoded technology, and inefficient distribution channels remain problems. Easing these bottlenecks requires long-term capital accumulation and profit maximization. The institutions necessary for such growth have not developed under Eastern Europe's new "pseudo-privatization", while distributing state property to citizens, has not provided them with the capital and technology they need to succeed. This book shows that the market mechanism alone will not transform Eastern Europe's potentially productive enterprises into international competitors without government co-ordination and support.
Table of Contents
- From pseudo-socialism to pseudo-capitalism
- transition macroeconomics
- the black box of state-owned enterprises
- overloading the market mechanism
- pseudo-privatization and the World Bank
- enterprise and the state
- challenges facing the state
- reconstructing the state
- economy, society and the state.
by "Nielsen BookData"