The large and widening gap between economic performance in Eastern European transition economies and those of the former Soviet Union has been dubbed "the Great Divide" by Berglof and Bolton (2002). This paper provides a rationale for the gap based upon the concept of financial repression. The...

The break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, following closely on the adoption of market-oriented reforms in Eastern Europe, created a new specialty within economics. The economics of transition encompass phenomena and problems from both microeconomics and macroeconomics, as economists from all...