This book offers important new insights into recent advances and perspectives in the field of political economy of development in Southeastern European countries. In addition, it provides theoretical and empirical contributions to political economy of development in an international context. Written by authors from Greece, Serbia and Turkey, the book covers a broad spectrum of topics – from macroeconomics and economic policy to international political economy and globalization. Presenting new and original ideas, this is a valuable resource for anyone wishing to gain a deeper understanding of political economy of development in Southeastern Europe: academicians, policymakers and business practitioners.
The collapse of communism in Central, East and South-East Europe (CESEE) led to great hopes for the region and for Europe. A quarter of a century on, the picture is mixed: in many CESEE countries, the transformation process is incomplete, and the economic catch-up has taken longer than anticipated. The current situation has highlighted the need for a better understanding of the long-term political and economic implications of the Central, East and South-East European historical experience. This thematically organised text offers a clear and comprehensive guide to the economic history of CESEE from 1800 to the present day. Bringing together authors from both East and West, the book also draws on the cutting-edge research of a new generation of scholars from the CESEE region. Presenting a thoroughly modern overview of the history of the region, the text will be invaluable to students of economic history and CESEE area studies.
The integration of post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe into the EU is one of the success stories of European development. The region has seen significant economic convergence, dramatic changes in socio-economic indicators and improvements in the natural environment. However, some challenges remain, such as political divergence, public governance issues and population demographics. This book identifies and analyses the key post-1990 developments across the New Member States at the sub-national and national levels, with frequent country-level and regional comparisons. Careful attention is paid to drawing out commonalities in development trajectories while appreciating each country’s unique context. Drawing on the academic literature and illuminating empirical material, the broad range of topics discussed in the book paints a detailed picture of both change and stability in Central and Eastern Europe. It will be valuable reading for advanced students, researchers and policymakers in regional studies, European studies, human geography, political economy and transition economics.
This volume comprises papers presented at the 8th international conference “The Economies of the Balkan and Eastern European Countries in the Changing World” (EBEEC) held in Split, Croatia in 2016. The papers cover a wide range of current issues relevant for the whole of Eastern Europe, such as European integration, economic growth, labour markets, education and tourism. Written by experienced researchers in the field of economic challenges for Eastern Europe, the papers not only analyse recent problems, but also offer policies to resolve them. Furthermore, they offer insights into the theoretical and empirical foundations of the economic processes described. The proceedings of the conference appeals to all those interested in the further economic development of the Balkan and Eastern European countries.
The Czech Republic and Economic Transition in Eastern Europe is the first in-depth, comparative analysis of the Czech Republic's economic transition after the fall of the Communist bloc. Edited by Jan Svejnar,a principal architect of the Czech economic transformation and Economic Advisor to President Vaclav Havel, the book poses important questions about the Republic and its partners in Central and Eastern Europe. The thirty-five essayists describe the country's macroeconomic performance; its development of capital markets; the structure and performance of its industries; its unemployment, household behavior, and income distribution; and the environmental and health issues it faces.In this in-depth, comparative analysis of the Czech Republic's economic transition, an international team of thirty-five economists examine the Republic and its partners in Central and Eastern Europe. Important questions and issues permeate the essays. For example, prior to 1939 the Czech Republic possessed the most advanced economy in the region; is it capable of reestablishing its dominance? Relative to its neighbors, the Republic ranks especially high on some transition-related performance indicators but low on others. What economic effects are related to the 1993 dissolution of the Czech and Slovak governments? And what can be learned by comparing the economic outcomes of two countries that shared legal and institutional frameworks? Data describe the country's macroeconomic performance; its development of capital markets; the structure and performance of its industries; its unemployment, household behavior, and income distribution; and the environmental and health issues facing it. Its most important contributions are its clarifications of the transition process.The authors included in Transforming Czechoslovakia combine the best available data and techniques of economic analysis to assess the replacement of the inefficient but internally consistent central planning system with a more efficient market system. These authors, among whom are central European economic analysts, senior U.S. economists, and Czechoslovakian professors and economic researchers, discuss the country's macroeconomic performance; its development of capital markets; the structure and performance of its industries; its unemployment, household behavior, and income distribution; and the environmental and health issues facing it. The essays vary between presentations of history and policy and technical examinations of data. Together they offer the most comprehensive and detailed assessment of the country's economic transformation in print.This book is important because its essayists compile results and reach conclusions that are broad and credible. The empirical data were gathered on the ground and have been subjected to advanced methodologies, including game theory, industrial organization, and Granger-Sims causality.
This monograph is about an exciting episode in the intellectual history of Europe: the vigorous debate among leading Polish historians on the sources of the economic development and non-development, including the origins of economic divisions within Europe. The work covers nearly fifty years of this debate between the publication of two pivotal works in 1947 and 1994. Anna Sosnowska provides an insightful interpretation of how local and generational experience shaped the notions of post-1945 Polish historians about Eastern European backwardness, and how their debate influenced Western historical sociology, social theories of development and dependency in peripheral areas, and the image of Eastern Europe in Western, Marxist-inspired social science. Although created under the adverse conditions of state socialism and censorship, this body of scholarship had an important repercussion in international social science of the post-war period, contributing an emphasis on international comparisons, as well as a stress on social theory and explanations. Sosnowska's analysis also helps to understand current differences that lead to conflicts between Europe's richest and economically most developed core and its southern and eastern peripheries. The historians she studies also investigated analogies between paths in Eastern Europe and regions of West Africa, Latin America and East Asia.
Western Europe's recovery from World War II was nothing short of miraculous. From the chaos of the war and the crisis of 1947, Europe moved directly to the most rapid quarter-century of economic growth in her history. The contributors to this volume seek to identify the sources of this singularly successful recovery. That all European countries shared in the miracle suggests that its roots may lie at the international level. The chapters therefore focus on the role played by international institutions - the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the European Coal and Steel Community, the European Payments Union, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade - and weigh the relative importance of domestic and international factors in Europe's postwar recovery. This book will be of interest to students of modern European history and to economists interested in economic growth, European economic integration, and reform of the Bretton Woods institutions.
Why has European growth slowed down since the 1990s while American productivity growth has speeded up? This book provides a thorough and detailed analysis of the sources of growth from a comparative industry perspective. It argues that Europe's slow growth is the combined result of a severe productivity slowdown in traditional manufacturing and other goods production, and a concomitant failure to invest in and reap the benefits from Information and Communications Technology (ICT), in particular in market services. The analysis is based on rich new databases including the EU KLEMS growth accounting database and provides detailed background of the data construction. As such, the book provides new methodological perspectives and serves as a primer on the use of data in economic growth analysis. More generally, it illustrates to the research and policy community the benefits of analysis based on detailed data on the sources of economic growth.
This paper analyses the impact of large and persistent emigration from Eastern European countries over the past 25 years on these countries’ growth and income convergence to advanced Europe. While emigration has likely benefited migrants themselves, the receiving countries and the EU as a whole, its impact on sending countries’ economies has been largely negative. The analysis suggests that labor outflows, particularly of skilled workers, lowered productivity growth, pushed up wages, and slowed growth and income convergence. At the same time, while remittance inflows supported financial deepening, consumption and investment in some countries, they also reduced incentives to work and led to exchange rate appreciations, eroding competiveness. The departure of the young also added to the fiscal pressures of already aging populations in Eastern Europe. The paper concludes with policy recommendations for sending countries to mitigate the negative impact of emigration on their economies, and the EU-wide initiatives that could support these efforts.
What makes countries rich? What makes countries poor? Europe's Growth Champion: Insights from the Economic Rise of Poland seeks to answer these questions, and many more, through a study of one of the biggest, and least heard about, economic success stories. Over the last twenty-five years Poland has transitioned from a perennially backward, poor, and peripheral country to unexpectedly join the ranks of the world's high income countries. Europe's Growth Champion is about the lessons learned from Poland's remarkable experience, the conditions that keep countries poor, and the challenges that countries need to face in order to grow. It defines a new growth model that Poland and its Eastern European peers need to adopt to grow and catch up with their Western counterparts. Poland's economic rise emphasizes the importance of the fundamental sources of growth- institutions, culture, ideas, and leaders- in economic development. It demonstrates that a shift from an extractive society, where the few rule for the benefit of the few, to an inclusive society, where many rule for the benefit of many, can be the key to economic success. *IEurope's Growth Champion asserts that a newly emerged inclusive society will support further convergence of Poland and the rest of Central and Eastern Europe with the West, and help to sustain the region's Golden Age. It also acknowledges the future challenges that Poland faces, and that moving to the core of the European economy will require further reforms and changes in Poland's developmental character.
