Why did the socialist system that dominated Eastern European countries for much of the 20th century collapse around 1990? Drawing on the newly released wiiw COMECON Dataset and reports that the wiiw was publishing at that time, we explore whether the collapse was due to unfixable systemic flaws...

This paper revisits the external economic relations in the former command economies of Central, East and Southeast Europe (CESEE) by exploring historical trade data. It provides a descriptive analysis of foreign trade statistics, drawing on the newly introduced wiiw COMECON Dataset, which...

This paper explores foreign engagements of socialist enterprises in non-socialist countries during the late stage of socialism in Central Europe. It shows that, contrary to popular belief, phenomena such as Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) were relevant in the...

This empirical study stresses the underlying macroeconomic forces which determine foreign trade flows in CPEs. The general specification includes a planners' demand equation for the volume of imports, a planners' supply equation for the volume of exports, and a rest-of-world demand equation for...

This article examines the research literature on the economic aspects of the "Sino-Soviet Alliance", which lasted from the end of the Chinese Civil war until the Sino-Soviet split (1949-1960/63). The Soviet and Eastern European contribution to China's industrialization, called the "largest...

This study offers a comparative analysis of economic reforms in Eastern Europe and China. Some CMEA countries-especially Yugoslavia and Hungary-undertook reforms in the 1960s, while China launched its reform and opening-up in 1978. In light of the lessons learned-concerning planning, markets,...

The paper considers issues in recent research on macroeconomic equilibrium in centrally planned economies. I defend the explicit aggregative , macroeconomic approach in theory, institutional relationships and measurement. It has offered a fresh, coherent framework for analysis of many CPE...

Economic growth in centrally planned economies was declining with the duration of these economic systems. There were multiple reasons for this development. Deeper insight can be provided by dividing economic growth into extensive and intensive parts. The goal of this article is to estimate the...

1. The degree of monopoly in the Kaldor-Mirrlees growth model -- 2. Capitalism, socialism and steady growth -- 3. Introductory essay to V. K. Dmitriev -- 4. Michal Kalecki's contributions to the theory and practice of socialist planning -- 5. Kalecki and Keynes revisited -- 6. Socialism on earth...

Today, the field of public administration has two problems that can be fixed with one solution. The first problem is fixation on a limited set of "middle-level" topics in public administration. The second problem is a bias toward scholarship generated within a very small number of Western...

We offer evidence of the role of continental orientation in the historical diffusion of technologies. Diamond (1997) argued that technologies spread more slowly North-South (N-S) than East-West (E-W) for two reasons. First, it was relatively costly for individuals to transport innovations when...

During the late 1980s, intensifying outward contact through traveling and telecommunications made people in Eastern European countries aware of the gap between living conditions in their countries and the neighboring West. In the wake of Gorbatchev's Glasnost and Perestroika movements in the...

In this report the authors analyze the CMEA trading relationship using the standard concepts of 1) specialization in accord with comparative advantage, and 2) the incentives to resist trade liberalization because of rents accruing to industry specific factors of production (including job...

Economic Theory suggest that central problem of economics is scarcity, thus the remedy for economic problems is growth -- accumulation of greater wealth to remove scarcity. Islamic teachings differentiate strongly between needs and wants. Needs are limited, and there is no scarcity of wealth...

Due to historical and geographical reasons, the Baltic States are strongly connected to the power (electricity) transmission grids of Russia and Belarus. Current energy security and energy independence targets in the EU trigger seeking for alternative power sources for the Baltic. Knowing that,...

Due to historical and geographical reasons, the Baltic States are strongly connected to the power (electricity) transmission grids of Russia and Belarus. Current energy security and energy independence targets in the EU trigger seeking for alternative power sources for the Baltic. Knowing that,...

The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 has led to the independence of fifteen new states. Twelve of these, including Ukraine, joined the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) whose goal was to form a common economic space with free movement of goods, labor and capital. Twenty five years...

Virtue ethics is widely recognized as one of three major approaches in contemporary moral philosophy and arguably the most influential normative theory in business ethics. Despite its rich pedigree in Western and Eastern philosophy, most work in contemporary virtue ethics is part of the Western...

"Red Money for the Global South explores the relationship of the East with the 'new' South after decolonization, with a particular focus on the economic motives of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) and other parties that were all striving for mutual cooperation. During the Cold...

The Hungarian precision engineering industry, although fairly successful in the pre-war period and able to survive all the adverse corollaries of planning and CMEA orientation, might be wiped out by the long-awaited marketisation: far more competitive and powerful foreign competitors can now...

This short essay examines the proposition that the transition process to a capitalist economic system in Eastern and Central European nations has introduced greater income inequality than in long-time capitalist nations at similar stages of development. In the empirical analysis I use comparable...

In 1949, Soviet Union and some of its satellites created Comecon with the announced goal to facilitate economic cooperation between the socialist countries. The inefficiency of socialist systems affected the performances of Comecon members. However, the analysis of economic development from some...

When the Soviet Union collapsed a transition process started in Eastern Europe. This included a number of reforms to adapt the educational system to the new requirements of the job market. To assess the educational systems in Eastern Europe, this paper takes a look at the gap in PISA test scores...

This paper examines the Macau welfare model. Having experienced a structural shift in its economic development, establishing a Casino-based economy, Macau has yet to develop an adequate social security system. This paper examines the history, and particularly the recent period since the Handover...

The highest rates of growth of labor productivity in the Soviet Union were observed not in the 1930s (3% annually), but in the 1950s (6%). The TFP growth rates by decades increased from 0.6% annually in the 1930s to 2.8% in the 1950s and then fell monotonously becoming negative in the 1980s. The...

The virtually bloodless revolutions of 1989 in Eastern Europe have understandably given rise to a rich complex spectrum of controversy and debate among reformers and specialists in both East and West on the problems and prospects surrounding the ability of these economies to make a successful...

Financing retirement is an important aspect of later life that is related to overall healthy living and wellbeing. Very little is known about the attitudes of people towards their individual future retirement plans, accrued savings or even finances once they are into old age. There are no...

The media and the popular culture literature in America and Europe are not the only biased groups in portraying women in Islam as "oppressed" and that their liberation can take place only outside Islam. Contrary to my trust in the impartiality of Western scholarly and activists groups, I am...

We model a two-stage duopolistic competition in a vertically differentiated eastern market between the eastern and western firms. In the first stage firms compete in R&D, and in the second stage in prices. Consumers in eastern market are distributed uniformly according to their income, and...

We analyse trade between countries of the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance in Eastern Europe between 1950 and 1990. Despite central planning and political motivation of the CMEA, we show that trade could be explained by standard demand factors surprisingly well. Moreover, we document that...