Foreword / Malgorzata Mazurek (Columbia University) -- Terms and methods -- Shortage, greed, protest : a short course in the history of the black market in the first half of the 20th century -- The Polish (anti) speculation curve : 1944-1989 -- The (historical) geography of the black market in...

This paper examines the relationship between macroeconomic stabilization and market-oriented reform in planned economies. It emphasizes that market-oriented reform should enhance the likelihood that adjustment to exogenous disturbances will involve genuine adjustment in the sense of actually...

Why is moving from moderate to low inflation almost always slow or costly? This paper answers this question, based on the Polish experience. First, reflecting the transition to a market economy, Polish inflation has been marked by significant changes in relative prices. Second, as wage and price...

This paper examines whether the clarity of central bank communication about inflation has changed with the economic environment. We use readability statistics and content analysis to study the clarity of communication on the inflation outlook by seven central banks between 1997 and 2010....

The transition to a market economy has been analyzed primarily from a stabilization prospective. To complement that approach, we focus on a pure relative price shock and subsequent price adjustments. A model of monopolistic competition with costly labor adjustment indicates that relative price...

This paper argues that the brunt of the reform-induced increase in Polish social expenditures has been borne by social insurance arrangements (mainly pensions and unemployment compensation) rather than by social assistance schemes targeted to the poor or more temporary social safety net schemes....