The U.S.S.R., the German Democratic Republic, Poland (in the 1970s), and Hungary represent within the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) a spectrum of the extent to which decisions on foreign trade have been decentralized and the exchange rate has taken on a direct role in determining...

This paper analyzes the ways in which macroeconomic disequilibrium may be generated, propagated, and finally brought under control in planned economies. In the "classical" centrally planned economy (CPE), policymakers favor quantity adjustments rather than price adjustments in confronting...

The waves of reform and restructuring now engulfing most of Eastern Europe did not begin from the same starting point in each country. While they all share a common economic legacy—the traditional Soviet-type centrally planned economy—some countries had been experimenting with limited forms...