All formerly centrally planned economies record very substantial declines in their social products. The largest drops in production are recorded in Poland and in east Germany (the former GDR), that is, in those countries where the most radical steps towards a market economy were taken in 1990....

In 1990 the privatisation debate in the ex-socialist countries advanced considerably. By now, the fundamental importance of private property for a market economy and the pitfalls of employee-ownership schemes are rarely disputed. Instead, the need for rapid privatisation and suitable methods of...

In recent years the problems of the indebtedness of the communist countries have been driven somewhat into the background by the high foreign indebtedness of many developing countries and the attention attracted by the balance of payments crises in Brazil and Mexico. Yet there are many...

Among the many contraints facing all participants in the international division of labour in the present decade, some seem to affect centrally planned economies (CPEs) to a greater extent than other countries. The CPEs' additional problems are due, according to Prof. Winiecki, to specific,...

The six European member countries of the CMEA depend greatly on imports of energy, and oil and oil products in particular, from the USSR. In the coming years the Soviet Union will, however, probably be unable to satisfy all their import requirements so that they are likely to buy more oil in the...

The new forms of cooperation between Western firms and East European enterprises, begun with so much optimism in the 1970s, have disappointed the expectations placed in them. In both East and West the question as to the benefits and risks of this particular form of collaboration is now being...