Identifying the most important systemic characteristics that have determined the behavior of Centrally Planned Economies (CPEs), is crucial for the choice of a transition path within the ongoing economic reforms in these countries. The empirical literature on the comparative behavior of CPEs and...

At the end of 1989, most economists agreed that the optimal approach to socialist economic reform involved immediate destruction of old institutions and rapid conversion to capitalist arrangements. This approach is called the radical one. The evolutionary approach has always offered an...