Ukraine has made impressive progress in restructuring and stabilizing its economy over the past two years, and yet much remains to be done to revive output and establish a market economy. The 16 papers included in this volume, edited by Peter K. Cornelius and Patrick Lenain, were presented at a seminar sponsored by the IMF and the World Bank in July 1996, which brought together government officials, academics, and staffs of international organizations to discuss a comprehensive medium- term strategy for Ukraine. The papers cover the medium-term macroeconomic framework; wages, poverty, and social safety net reform; private sector development; trade policies and sectoral reforms; and institution building and good governance.
One of Europe's old nations steeped in history, Ukraine is today an undisputed independent state. It is a democracy and has transformed into a market economy with predominant private ownership. Ukraine's postcommunist transition has been one of the most protracted and socially costly, but it has taken the country to a desirable destination. Åslund's vivid account of Ukraine's journey begins with a brief background, where he discusses the implications of Ukraine's history, the awakening of society because of Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms, the early democratization, and the impact of the ill-fated Soviet economic reforms. He then turns to the reign of President Leonid Kravchuk from 1991 to 1994, the only salient achievement of which was nation-building, while the economy collapsed in the midst of hyperinflation. The first two years of Leonid Kuchma's presidency, from 1994 to 1996, were characterized by substantial achievements, notably financial stabilization and mass privatization. The period 1996–99 was a miserable period of policy stagnation, rent seeking, and continued economic decline. In 2000 hope returned to Ukraine. Viktor Yushchenko became prime minister and launched vigorous reforms to cleanse the economy from corruption, and economic growth returned. The ensuing period, 2001–04, amounted to a competitive oligarchy. It was quite pluralist, although repression increased. Economic growth was high. The year 2004 witnessed the most joyful period in Ukraine, the Orange Revolution, which represented Ukraine's democratic breakthrough, with Yushchenko as its hero. The postrevolution period, however, has been characterized by great domestic political instability; a renewed, explicit Russian threat to Ukraine's sovereignty; and a severe financial crisis. The answers to these challenges lie in how soon the European Union fully recognizes Ukraine's long-expressed identity as a European state, how swiftly Ukraine improves its malfunctioning constitutional order, and how promptly it addresses corruption.
These analyses of the Ukranian economy show why not all transitions have a happy ending. In the Ukraine, ideology and poor policy choices can be seen to have combined to forestall even the most hopeful signs of recovery. Banaian argues that arrested transition may continue indefinitely.
by Anatoliy Kinakh, Prime Minister ofUkraine After a deep and long-lasting recession, the Ukrainian economy has for the past two years demonstrated some very positive dynamics in its quantitative development indicators. This is essentially the result of reforms, which still require to be consolidated in order to engage the factors and mechanisms capable of ensuring long-term qualitative and sustainable development in our economy. How do we ensure sustainable growth, and realise the improvements in the main macroeconomic indicators together with serious and complex improvements at the micro-level, which would allow us to achieve the urgently needed shifts in the social sphere? These actual problems are the main priorities of macroeconomic policy. Furthermore, the search for solutions to these problems of our transitional economy requires profound scientific analysis. The following presentations made at the Conference on "Factors of Economic Growth in Ukraine" are serious scientific contributions by prominent economists in this field.
Axel Siedenberg, Lutz Hoffmann 1 The specificity of transformation in Ukraine When the Soviet empire collapsed in the very early 1990s, the new era that dawned was commonly given the name 'transformation', implying the systemic change from socialism towards some form of market economy. Almost ten years later, 'the' transformation process does not exist any more; instead, a whole variety of transformations are taking place in Eastern Europe and the CIS: Whereas some countries are heading towards EU membership (e. g. Poland), others are still pondering on what economic system to adopt (e. g. Russia) and yet others have rejected a market-oriented transformation outright (e. g. Belarus). Within this variety of transformations, Ukraine clearly stands out as a specific case: Whilst initially considered to be one of the stronger post-Soviet Republics, it descended into economic depression in 1992 and has hardly recovered since; on the other hand, once considered to be a potential centre of ethnic unrest and political instability, it has turned into a democratic, peaceful civil society that is firmly establishing itself within the new European and world order. This book takes a critical look at economic reform in Ukraine as compared to other East European and CIS countries. Our hypothesis is that Ukraine is going through a transformation process peculiar to itself, which can be traced at both macroeconomic and microeconomic level.
Ukraine may have taken a "gradualist" approach to economic reform, but the results have been no better than in Russia. The editors have assembled the leading specialists on the Ukrainian economy, including officials from major Ukrainian and international economic institutions, to outline the major problems of the economy, analyze the initial phases of economic reform in Ukraine, assess their outcomes, and chart the way forward.
Marking the 25th anniversary of Ukraine as a sovereign nation, this book traces its economic transformation since 1991. Post-communist transition has been a highlight of recent history, and Ukraine stands out as one of its most interesting and puzzling cases. Havrylyshyn offers the first comprehensive treatise on the entire period, providing a thorough description of the slow evolution of economic reforms, exploring how and why performance in this regard fell far behind the leaders in transition. Testing several conventional hypotheses, the author argues that while Russian imperialism may form part of the explanation, the self-serving interests of domestic elites and new oligarchs may be even more important. Radically revising the traditional argument that reforms were delayed to allow nation building, this book contends that it was due more to the interests of the non-lustrated elite, who needed time to become the new capitalists.
This book provides a detailed picture of the equity and efficiency of economic restructuring, focusing on the two most important successor states to the Soviet Union. Analysis is based on a careful examination of micro level data, documenting the experiences of workers, households and firms.
"The government deficits that have played such a prominent role in Ukraine's continued economic decline reflect in large measure the fact that government has been slow to relinquish the role it played during the Soviet era." Since independence, Ukraine has suffered one of the most severe economic declines of any country in this century. While other transition countries in the region successfully replaced their old command economies with market economies, Ukraine continued to protect unprofitable enterprises to preserve employment and income levels. To support this strategy, the government has borrowed more money than it takes in and, at the same time, competes with private enterprise domestically for credit. As Ukraine's economic foundations proceed to crumble, the Ukrainian Government. the World Bank, and the International Center for Policy Studies in Kyiv examined the issues surrounding the crisis. The group analyzed the data and policy studies that were prepared by various Ukrainian and World Bank teams of experts and formulated recommendations for strategies to stem the growing tidal wave of economic collapse now threatening Ukraine. This report presents the issues that are creating these crises and outlines a course to prevent a crash. This report will be of interest to government agencies, economists, bankers, and academics.
