Research papers on economic growth, Innovation and economic reform in the socialist countries of Eastern Europe, partic. Hungary, Poland, the USSR and Yugoslavia - covers issues relating to the impact of the political system on economic development, research and development, industrialization, industrial growth, choice of technology, trade with advanced capitalist countries; etc.; comments on socialist and Western economic theories; includes economic analysis methodology. Graphs, references, statistical tables.
Future growth in the countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ECA) will increasingly depend on innovation. And innovation requires skills. This makes it important, as countries plan for recovery, to undertake reforms to reduce the skills shortages that the previous growth episode exposed. Education systems have a very important role to play in creating the right skills. But education systems in the region fall short of the demands of their economies in two major ways. The first is that despite high levels of enrollment they do not produce enough graduates with the right skills. Students graduate with diplomas, not with skills, because the quality of the education for many students is poor. In large part this is because education systems remain focused on providing an excellent education to a few at the expense of improving the quality of learning for the majority. Moreover, the systems are still making the transition from teaching the basics to inculcating higher order skills such as critical-thinking and problem solving. The second way in which education systems fall short is that outside of a few countries in the EU there are few opportunities for adults to retrain, or acquire new skills. This book argues that generating more of the right skills requires a fundamental change of approach in the education systems in the region so that they aim for, and deliver, higher quality education for the vast majority of students (not just diplomas but skills). To start with, education systems need to turn the lights on and take seriously the measurement of what students actually learn as opposed to measurement of the inputs into the education process on the implicit assumption that learning follows. Policy makers also need to move away from the focus on inputs and processes and increase the emphasis on incentives.
The rise of industrial capitalism in the nineteenth century forged a new ecological order in North American and Western European states, radically transforming the environment through science and technology in the name of human progress. Far less known are the dramatic environmental changes experienced by Eastern Europe, in many ways a terra incognita for environmental historians and anthropologists. A New Ecological Order explores, from a historical and ethnographic perspective, the role of state planners, bureaucrats, and experts—engineers, agricultural engineers, geographers, biologists, foresters, and architects—as agents of change in the natural world of Eastern Europe from 1870 to the early twenty-first century. Contributors consider territories engulfed by empires, from the Habsburg to the Ottoman to tsarist Russia; territories belonging to disintegrating empires; and countries in the Balkan Peninsula, Central and Eastern Europe, and Eurasia. Together, they follow a rhetoric of “correcting nature,” a desire to exploit the natural environment and put its resources to work for the sake of developing the economies and infrastructures of modern states. They reveal an eagerness among newly established nation-states, after centuries of imperial economic and political impositions, to import scientific knowledge and new technologies from Western Europe that would aid in their economic development, and how those imports and ideas about nature ultimately shaped local projects and policies.
The authors of this book advise the economies of the European Union to become more entrepreneurial in promoting innovation and economic growth. The authors propose a reform strategy with respect to several aspects to achieve this goal. Starting with the rule of law and the protection of property rights; the tax system; the authors deal with regulations governing savings, capital and finance, and the organization of labor markets and social insurance systems. Framework strategies related to the regulations governing goods and service markets, bankruptcy and insolvency are also put forward. A core understanding and future path is also provided towards R&D, commercialization and knowledge spillovers; human capital investments; and informal institutions. This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.
A systematic comparison of the institutions and incentive systems governing the processes of technological invention, innovation and diffusion in advanced market and centrally planned economies.
This analysis of economic reform in Eastern Europe covers topics such as the economics of conversion, reforming the Soviet economy, reform in Hungary, economic adjustment in Eastern Europe, and Eastern Europe and financial markets.
Analysing the key problems facing the transition countries in Central and Eastern Europe, this accessible book describes the legacy of the central planners, the progress achieved so far and the need for further reforms. It documents the outstanding successes and failures, and analyses why certain approaches to transition have worked and others have not. It tests where transition is over and shows how some countries have graduated from 'transition' to 'integration' through their efforts to join the European Union (EU). It discusses the costs and benefits of the eastern enlargement of the EU. The specific experiences of German unification, the Soviet Union's disintegration, and Russia's complex reforms are examined, as are the specific issues that need to be addressed in the Balkans. The book concludes by indicating how the expanding EU could help the poor performers through inclusion in a continent-wide integrated economic area.
Understanding the dramatic political, social, and economic changes that have taken place in Poland in the mid-1980s is one key to predicting the future of the communist bloc. Jadwiga Staniszkis, an influential, internationally known expert on contemporary trends in Eastern Europe, provides an insider's analysis that deserves the attention of all scholars interested in the region. Staniszkis presents the breakthrough of 1989 as a consequence not only of systemic contradictions within socialism but also of a series of chance events. These events include unique historical circumstances such as the emergence of the "globalist" faction in Mosow, with its new, world-system perception of crisis, and the discovery of the round-table technique as a productive ritual of communication, imitated all over Eastern Europe. After describing the development, collapse, and reorganization of a "new center" in Poland in 1989-1990, she discusses the first attempt at privatizing the economy. Her analysis of the dilemmas accompanying breakthrough and transition is an invaluable guide to the challenges that face both capitalism and democracy in Eastern Europe.
