The policy of reform in the former Eastern Bloc countries is relying on introducing the mechanisms of the market economy. However, the process of putting such changes into practice with concrete measures has to overcome a number of impediments which have so far hardly been considered by the...

The integration of the former state-trading countries into international free trade may, on the one hand, sensibly complement the reforms now under way towards their becoming market economies; on the other hand, this move harbours the risk of perpetuating and indeed aggravating the economic...