János Kornai, a distinguished Hungarian economist, began his adult life as an ardent believer in socialism and then became a critic of the communist political and economic system. He lost family members in the Holocaust, contributed to the ideological preparation for the 1956 Hungarian...

In their earlier report, Reform in Eastern Europe, the WIDER group assessed the main building blocks of a successful transition in Eastern Europe: stabilization, price liberalization, privatization, and restructuring. For the last three years this group of leading economists has been heavily...

This collection examines the design of financial systems for central and eastern European countries engaged in the transition to market-based economies. It highlights the need for better approaches to measuring performance and providing incentives in banking and for financial mechanisms to...