Economic reforms in Eastern Europe: Basic problems, options and opportunities

The events in August in the Soviet Union demonstrated drastically the difficulties faced by the countries of Eastern Europe in the transition to a market-based system. The following article analyzes the specific distoritions in their economies which this process involves. The author argues in favour of radical reforms at an early stage, but also emphasizes the importance of sustained and gradual reform steps in the longer term to deal with the accumulated distortions.