Small Enterprise Policy in Transition Economies: Progress with the Wrong Model?

The paper starts by considering the neo-liberal approach to small enterprise development and why it was to underpin small enterprise policy in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) from the very first years of the transition. Author briefly considers what other policy models or alternatives were realistically on offer at that time. His final concern is with the actual results of the neo-liberal policy interventions in CEE in practice. The paper focuses particularly on the programmes supported by the international assistance community, since they were largely responsible for both the financing and the design of the bulk of the interventions which emerged after 1989.