Soft budget constraints (SBCs) are a persistent feature of transition economies and have been blamed for i.a. a lack of fiscal consolidation and sluggish growth. EU eastward enlargement has - among other things - been conditioned on tackling SBCs. This paper analyzes such outside conditionality...

This paper offers a broad overview of the Hungarian development strategy over the past two decades. Combining historical and functional analysis, some major strengths and weaknesses are identified, with special emphasis on the country's open-door policies and the role played by the European...

Why some party-states collapse and others don't? Why some transformations are accompanied by economic crisis while others by economic growth? Are first political or economic transformation strategic alternatives? This paper comprises the essence of the author's comparative research on...

The notion of policy experimentation was proposed to explain China’s adaptability in policy-making process. Heilmann (2008a) proposed ‘decentralised experimentation with ad hoc interference’ as the central feature of policy experimentation. Through installing ‘experimental points’ at...

In the hierarchy of China's state sector, both before and during the current reform period, government bureaucrats select and supervise state-owned enterprise (SOE) managers. The incentive problem of SOE managers has been studied carefully, but that of the bureaucrats has not. This paper uses a...

The collapse of Soviet Union was an exceptional experiment in the economic history of the world, which made the post-socialist countries subject of various economic studies. Different researchers and organizations tend to monitor the progress of economic and institutional reforms through...

This paper aims at exploring the relationship between Europeanization, Enlargement and social policy developments in Central and Eastern Europe. In particular, it examines the importance of ideas, interests and institutions in the making of contemporary public and social policies, as well as...