Suchergebnisse

This book describes the process of the Czech economic transformation from the beginning of the 1990s to the country?s entry into the European Union in 2004. This transformation is divided into four periods: an initial recession caused by the transformation; economic growth in the mid-1990s; a recession connected to the currency crisis of 1997; and recovery and growth from 1999 until 2004, when the analysis ends. The examination covers the main aspects of the transformation?an overall view of the process, political transition, economic policy, economic results (GDP development, infl ation, unemployment), changes in outside indicators (balance of payments), privatization, transformation of the fi nancial sector, and changes in the business sector and institutional development.0The book also compares Czech development in this transformative era to those of Poland and Hungary. As in Hungary and Poland, the Czech Republic underwent an exceptional qualitative shift from a system centrally planned to one that was market-based. The book concludes that despite mistakes and hardships, the overall transformation process in Central Europe has been successful

The Slovenian economy appeared on the brink of bankruptcy at the end of 2013. The situation was caused by high level of classified debts in state-owned banks. This can be seen as surprising because Slovenia used to be (for a long time) considered as a (textbook) example of the gradualist transformation approach. The goal of this article is first to describe the transformation process in the country and consequently to determine causes of the economic problems that resulted in the 2013 crisis. The article concludes that the economic problems were rooted already in the specific functioning of the centrally planned system in Yugoslavia. These specifics had a direct influence on the transformation process in the country and stood behind the application of gradualism. Among the most telling features of gradualism were slow privatization, cold attitude towards foreign investment and the foremost lasting casual economic environment caused by behaviour of the state-owned banks. My conclusion is that the country's economic problems can be ascribed to gradualism and that they are a clear example of the path dependence development.

The paper analyses transformation process in Hungary between 1989 and 2004. The goal of this paper is to analyze and evaluate the transformation process in Hungary. The structure of the paper follows this general goal. First of all, an analysis of economic development of the country before the fall of the communist regime is carried out because this determined the whole process which followed. Then we shortly mention political development that had a significant impact on the transformation process and its results. In the next part we concentrate on the main steps in the economic transformation, and consequently we devote space to specific aspects - privatization, for example. The main economic indicators of this period are analyzed in the final part. We conclude that the transformation process achieved its main economic goal and the economy's ability to grow increased. At the same time, however, the transformation process created environment for the subsequent economic problems.

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The Czech Republic often has been cited as an example of successful economic transformation. The available literature has primarily focused on changes in the macroeconomic environment, although the actions of economic agents at the microeconomic level have emerged as the crucial factor explaining this success. Based on 101 oral history interviews, this article offers the firsthand experiences, frustrations, challenges, and human dimensions of doing business at that time and shows that the road from socialism to the market economy was a bumpy one. Our approach fills major information voids, and thus offers a unique opportunity for business historians to avoid slipping into the incomplete view of the world presented by written literature and archives.

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AbstractThis paper focuses on the Czech economic transition and aims to identify the determinants of unusually high and long‐lasting public support for market reforms. The study is based on a unique combination of statistical analysis of survey data and oral history (interviews with reformers, managers etc.), which has enabled us to depict the views of the general public as well as of many people involved in decision‐making processes on both macro and micro levels. These findings allow us to propose recommendations on how to gain and maintain public support for economic reforms. Above all, reformers must utilize the period of euphoria and communicate the individual steps of reform with the public.

AbstractThis paper addresses the performance of international trade during the centrally planned period in socialist Czechoslovakia and its consequences in the transition period. The goal of the paper is to determine whether the relative export competitiveness before 1989 positively influenced the performance of the enterprises in the transition period. To determine the reason for the low competitiveness of socialist enterprises, we use the oral history method, based on interviews with the then managers. We show that the level of competitiveness was influenced by multiple factors. Some of them were of a systemic nature, such as incentive structure, which did not encourage managers to pursue higher productivity, and others were related to day‐to‐day operations of the enterprises and a lack of Western technologies. Consequently, an econometric analysis is applied to determine whether there was any relationship between competitiveness in late socialism (ability to export to world markets) and production growth in the transition period. We expected that sectors that were able to export to Western markets during the centrally planned period were more successful after the fall of the regime. However, our findings do not support this hypothesis.

Rational agents react to incentives in the market economy as well as in the centrally planned economy. Economic laws are persistent regardless of the economic system. The legislative system changes the outcome of the game between economic agents and managers. The aim of this paper is to show how rational agents reacted to legislative incentives in the Soviet-type economy in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s and 1980s, that is, how they reacted to the general shortage in the centrally planned economy. Based on the original survey among former managers as well as on the legislative sources from the 1970s and 1980s, a taxonomy was made of economic reactions to the shortage economy. This survey was possibly the last chance to map the experiences of socialist managers who tried to run companies in the centrally planned economy. We distinguish plan manipulation in order to ensure payment bonuses; bribery in order to obtain short-supplied inputs and the creation of reserves for the purpose of fulfilling the plan. It was shown that, if the rational agent wanted to obey the higher law, he was forced to ignore lower legislation.