Suchergebnisse

This study of economic reforms throughout Eastern Europe covers the history of attempts at decentralization. The book: * Describes the centralized model and compares its requirements with the realities of socialist countries * Discusses the economic policies of the post-Stalinist period * Examines the origin of the reforms which began in 1956, culminating in the Soviet economic reform of 1965 and the rehabilitation of profit. Countries covered include the former USSR, the former East Germany and Hungary

Résumé L'histoire des entreprises permet d'éclairer les grands mouvements de l'économie, d'en préciser l'origine. Les apports de ce type d'histoire sont multiples : rôle des économies d'échelle et de diversification, et, plus encore, du progrès technique. La vision du progrès technique par les historiens alimente ainsi nombre de modèles de croissance endogène. Une démarche purement microéconomique pose cependant le problème de la représentativité de l'objet d'étude. Deux distorsions peuvent biaiser l'analyse : la focalisation sur l'histoire des succès et sur celle de la grande entreprise. Une prise en compte de la dimension macroéconomique demeure donc nécessaire pour établir les faits majeurs. Néanmoins, pour fournir les explications ultimes, la dimension microéconomique est souvent d'une grande utilité. Les discordances sont fréquentes entre les deux dimensions, mais les convergences l'emportent, comme le montrent et l'œuvre d'Alfred Chandler et celle de Michael Porter. S'ils se rejoignent sur l'importance déterminante de la dynamique de l'innovation, le second a su écarter, au contraire du premier, le postulat de la supériorité de la grande entreprise au profit de l'effet d'entraînement engendré par la création d'entreprises nouvelles. L'histoire d'entreprises en effet a trop longtemps sous-estimé le rôle économique des petites et moyennes entreprises.

Whereas the passage toward a market economy in East Europe entailed sharp drops in production, employment in industry, and living standards, the Chinese economy has literally taken off since reforms started in 1978 and were twice accelerated (around 1980 and in 1992-1994). Structural factors, the low initial level of industrialization, the eastern Asian pole of strong economic growth, all this does not suffice to explain the dissymmetry between China and Eastern Europe. Nonetheless, China's success story cannot be cited as proof of the overall superiority of "gradualism" over "shock therapy", since the country is far from having an optimal gradualist strategy. China's experimental approach has managed to propel the economy because reforms were radicalized in two crucial fields: on the one hand the farming sector and the countryside in general; and, on the other, the progress accomplished throughout the period in bringing China back into the international economy. Sectorally, geographically and chronologically, the results turn out positive wherever reforms have been the most radical. When seen in terms of both its objectives and the conditions for opening doors toward the outside, the 1992-1994 acceleration suggests a similarity with the most boldly pursued strategies in Eastern Europe. But the Chinese experience still stands out in that the opening of the economy has not brought along political liberalization.