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Transition Economics
Celebrating twenty years of transition from socialism to capitalism, this book is designed to be the core textbook for undergraduate courses in transition economics and comparative economic systems. Given the passage of time, Transition Economics: Two Decades On reviews and accounts for the outcomes in the so-called transition economies and, from an academic perspective, takes the reader through developments and issues in the twenty years of transition from plan to market.
Treating its subject matter thematically, the book incorporates much of the transition economics literature and evidence that have evolved over the past two decades. In particular, the authors focus on the most important aspects of economic transition, including:
The initial conditions at the outset of transition
Paradigms and patterns of transition
The main transition policies and economic reforms
The performance of transition countries and firms
The lessons from transition
The textbook covers a wide range of both contemporary microeconomic and macroeconomic issues, in over thirty ex-socialist European and Asian countries, including Russia and China.
Transition Economics: Two Decades On is more than just a book about a particular part of the world or the transformation that was experienced at a particular time in history. The authors believe that the study of the economics of transition gives the reader an insight into theories, policies, reforms, legacies, institutions, processes and lessons that have application and relevance, beyond the specific transition from plan to market, to other parts of the world and to other times in history.
eBook
Transition economics
Pre-transition : the socialist system -- Stylised facts of transition : two decades on -- Initial conditions at the outset of transition -- Paradigms of transition -- Transition reforms and economic policies -- Enterprise reform and restructuring -- Performance and transition outcomes -- Labour markets in transition : a focus on Russia and China -- Economic transition : Russia versus China -- Lessons from transition
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Introduction
A new sub-branch of economics emerged at the end of the twentieth century. It arose from the collapse of the Soviet socialist system and the subsequent transition from a centrally planned economy to a market economy. It is known as transition economics where transition is defined as the social, political and economic transformation from a command system characterised by state ownership, collective action and central planning to a market system characterised by decentralised decision-making arrangements and private sector market transactions. Although it overlaps with other branches of economics, most notably comparative economic systems and development economics, the study of transition economics (and transition countries) is sufficiently distinct to warrant its own sub-branch within the discipline of economics.
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Pre-Transition: The Socialist System
In August 1991 Boris Yeltsin, President of the newly self-declared independent Russian Federation, hauled himself atop a Russian armoured vehicle, shook the hand of the slightly bewildered Russian soldier inside and declared, 'Soldiers, officers, generals: the clouds of terror and dictatorship are gathering over the whole country. They must not be allowed to bring eternal night.' In doing so he thereby helped to bring to an end one of the greatest social experiments in human history. (See Box 1.1, Attempted Coup d'état in the Soviet Union, 1991, for a description and an explanation of this failed Communist coup d'état.)
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Lessons From Transition
With two decades of transition complete, it is an appropriate time to take stock of transformation. In doing so, we join a distinguished yet surprisingly small number of economists who have recently assessed the record of transition, and, more importantly, outlined what the economics profession has learnt from the transition experience (Havrylyshyn 2001, 2006; Kolodko 1999, 2006; Kornai 2000b, 2008; Roland 2001, 2002). Some of these conclusions are outlined in Appendix 7.
Book Chapter
Paradigms of Transition
Strictly speaking, there is no 'theory' of transition from a centrally planned system to a market system. In the late 1980s when change was imminent in the Eastern bloc countries (and was already underway in the East Asian countries of China and Vietnam) there was no theory of transition from plan to market that policy makers and supporters of reform could adopt. What evolved over time, in the period that has passed since then, are two different approaches to understanding the transition process from a centrally planned economy to a market-based economy.
1
The conventional paradigm - which many policy makers did adopt - is, for want of a better title, the Washington Consensus approach to economic transition and the alternative paradigm is the institutional-evolutionary approach. We outline both viewpoints and their respective underlying conceptual framework in this chapter.
2
As a prelude, we begin with the Washington Consensus.
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Stylised Facts of Transition Two decades on
After two decades of transition from plan to market, we can now identify some of the most important stylised facts of economic transition. Some of these patterns of transition were expected, such as the rise in private enterprise and services, the fall in government expenditure and revenue, the rise in foreign trade and in unemployment, and the change in investment and consumption patterns. Others happened as predicted but the degree of the change was unexpected, such as the rapid rise in prices, the sudden fall in revenues, and the extreme rise in poverty and inequality. Other developments were, for the majority of commentators interested in transition, surprising. This includes the decline in output, the rise in corruption and informal activities, and most alarmingly, the fall in population associated with the rise in mortality rates (unprecedented in peacetime in industrialised nations).
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Economic Transition
This chapter aims to explore the divergent paths of the two main transition regimes of Russia and China as they travelled, and continue to travel, very different paths to market-style economies. Such an examination of paths travelled usually revolves around the central issue of gradualism versus the Big Bang approach to transition. While we do not avoid such a discussion, we do explore alternative perspectives.
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Initial Conditions at The Outset of Transition
In this chapter we outline the starting point for socialist countries embarking on transition from plan to market. The chapter identifies a number of initial conditions that reflect the circumstances of these countries at the outset of transition. Differences in these inherited conditions are examined with a view to later explaining differences in cross-country performance during transition. Was it the case that countries with the most adverse initial conditions were indeed the same cohort of countries that were the worst performers? Other explanatory variables, such as reforms and external factors, are also identified. The chapter ends with a summary of the main quantitative studies examining the impact of initial conditions on performance, and the interrelationship between initial conditions, policy reforms and economic outcomes.
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