Socialist Economies in Transition

Edited by Mark Knell, NIFU Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education, Norway and Christine Rider, Associate Dean, College of Business Administration, St John’s University, US

• Behind the crisis in centrally planned economies, Christine Rider and Mark Knell; justifying the need for reform - the price-theoretic approach, Christine Rider; transitions from centrally planned to market economies, Christian Gehrke and Mark Knell; Michal Kalecki and early attempts to reform the Polish economy, Tadeusz Kowalik; effective demand and the transformation of socialist economies, Edward Nell; from a command toward a market economy - the Polish experience, Kazimierz Laski; the market transformation of state enterprises, Branko Horvat; failure of monetary restriction in Hungary and Yugoslavia - a post Keynesian interpretation, Shirley J. Gedeon; state monopolies and marketization in Poland, Helena Sinoracka; whatever happened to the East German economy, Heinz D. Kurz; lessons from China on a strategy for the socialist economies in transition, Mark Knell and Wenyan Yang; conclusion - implications for socialist economies in transition, Mark Knell and Christine Rider.

'This excellent collection of articles serves as an argument for caution in interpreting where the formerly socialist economics are going. . . or why they began their transition to whatever in the late 1980s. . . This book provides a valuable collection of essays coherently addressed to this important historical moment and process. . . Social economists should be particularly interested in this book's descriptions of, and central concern with, the social costs of these historical transformations. The essays are uniformly well written and easily accessible to an undergraduate student.'