During the 1960s most of the countries of Eastern Europe experienced a visible retardation of economic growth. This paper supports the view of many Eastern as well as Western economists that the retardation was caused primarily by declining rates of growth of the total factor productivity. The...

The increased integration of the economies of Central and Eastern Europe with the European Union (EU) as the Europe Agreements are progressively implemented, is projected to have a significant impact on trade flows with Spain, as exports and imports grow very rapidly, albeit starting from a very...

The demise of the CMEA trading system in 1991 and the shift to convertible currency settlements and world market prices was expected to bring about a severe contraction of intra-group trade, coupled with large imbalances in trade between Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The observed...

One of the important neglected issues in discussions of East European transition to the market is the structure of the government's budget, especially the roles played by taxes and subsidies. This paper reviews the Hungarian fiscal situation in 1990, the most recent year for which reasonably...

East European countries have experienced sharp declines in real GDP since 1990. One of the reasons for this decline is the Soviet trade shock caused by the collapse of the CMEA and of traditional export markets in the Soviet Union. This paper is an attempt to quantify the magnitude of this...

By the end of 1991, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland had achieved a substantial degree of openness to foreign trade. In all three countries, trade is now demonopolized and licensing and quotas play a very small role. Exchange controls have virtually disappeared for current-account...