Publisher's Synopsis
Reforms in Central-Eastern Europe and in the former Soviet Union have challenged the ability of established theories to account for such an extraordinary political, economic and social transformation. As it is too soon to analyse the outcomes of these reforms, Mario Blejer and Fabrizio Coricelli have chosen an original approach, analysing the process of transformation through the eyes of some of the main actors in the design and implementation of reforms.
The Making of Economic Reform in Eastern Europe features interviews with three of the key human actors behind the reforms: Leszek Balcerowicz, Polish Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, 1990-91, and widely recognized as the architect of Polish economic reforms, Peter Akos Bod, President of the National Bank of Hungary and formerly Minister of Industry, Hungary, and Vaclav Klaus, Prime Minister of the Czechoslovakian Republic and Czechoslovakian Minister of Finance during the initiation of the reforms.
These conversations include discussion of their personal and intellectual formation, their views of the development and design of the reform package, their initial expectations, the process of implementing the reforms and the prospects for the future. As well as providing a unique perspective on the experience of different transitional economies through an assessment of their leading policy makers, this book sheds light on the complex relationship between politics and policy making in countries undergoing the simultaneous overhaul of their political and economic systems.
