As the world approaches the 20th anniversary of the fall of communism, it is worth investigating the costs borne by countries like India that did not become communist but drew heavily on the Soviet model. For three decades after its independence in 1947, India strove for self-sufficiency instead...

The economic and financial crisis of 2007-2009 had a serious impact on the larger European region. For western Europe this was the deepest economic downturn since the Second World War. Given the well-developed safety nets for this region the immediate impact on health is likely to be minor....

It has recently become customary to argue that Russian economic transformation since 1991 has failed because of bad policy advice and mistaken policy choices. Though Russia's performance leaves much to be desired, such criticisms are based on a failure to analyse the real choices available to...

As a result of the program of social, political, and economic reforms called doi moi" (meaning renovation) implemented by the Communist Party in 1986, market forces have been allowed to operate in Vietnam subject to state supervision. The centerpiece of doi moi has been to attract foreign...

The paper discusses the strategy of economic development of Russia, which has to be developed after the end of the first stage of post-communist transition – when private economy replaced the state-controlled one and stabilization has been obtained. Russia is considered as a heavy...

In this paper we outline the main theories of persisting high inflation and test them informally by reference to the three main attempts to stabilise the Russian macroeconomy between 1992-4. We then assess the prospects for the success of the fourth and current effort.

The Orange Revolution in the fall of 2004 built great hopes for a better future for Ukraine. However, three years later those hopes have been replaced by disappointment, frustration and confusion. Although progress in the areas of political freedom, pluralism, civil rights and freedom in the...

This paper evaluates the usefulness of business sentiment indicators for forecasting developments in the Chinese real economy. We use data on diffusion indices collected by the People's Bank of China for forecasting industrial production, retail sales and exports. Our bivariate vector...