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As the world marketplace becomes ever more globalized, much is at stake for the prosperity of hundreds of millions of people in Europe and Central Asia as the region’s transition process continues through its second decade. Understanding the underlying dynamics shaping the contours and most salient impacts of international integration that have emerged—and likely to emerge prospectively—in the region is thus a crucial challenge for the medium term economic development agenda, not only for policymakers in the countries on themselves, but also for their trading partners, the international financial institutions, the donor community and the future of the world trading system as a whole. This book addresses this challenge.

This volume focuses on Central and Southeast Europe, and explores the dynamic and complex area of distributive trade on markets which have recently undergone a huge transformation. Papers in the volume employ both quantitative and qualitative research methods, and focus on retailing, international trade, relationships between retailers and suppliers, sustainability, private brands, loyalty programs, e-commerce and retailing strategies. Challenges For Trade in Central and Southeast Europe offers insights that will assist retailers, wholesalers and logistics companies in their decision making, as well as exploring macro topics that consider the effects of trade on the economy as a whole. There is much of value for a broad international readership, including academics, practitioners and policy-makers.

Transition Economies and Foreign Trade makes the bold claim to have solved puzzles that have hindered the subject for years. By taking the distortions of the Communist era into consideration, Winiecki has explained the phenomenon of the decline in output and trade, as well as explaining the dual commodity nature of exports in the early transition phase. The book's intriguing analyses include: *the legacy of the Communist past upon foreign trade transition *the reorientation of exports from the East to the West *trade and exchange rate regimes and their impact upon foreign trade performance *post-transition problems, associated with potential membership of the European Union. This topical and timely book should become essential reading for students and academics with an interest in international economics as well as being of great use to business analysts and policy makers. 'Winiecki provides a fair amount of reasonable and well-thought analysis in this volume, which can be warmly recommended to scholars and students of post-Communist transition and foreign trade.' - Z. Ádám, University College London

This guide is an introduction to English language sources, in electronic and conventional print forms, dealing with Central and Eastern European business issues. It gives evaluative descriptions and costs of all listed sources, and concentrates on recent sources. Sources in respect of some of these countries can be difficult to locate, and the author provides guidance on how to go about finding them.

This volume focuses on Central and Southeast Europe and explores the dynamic and complex area of distributive trade on markets which have recently undergone a huge transformation. Papers in the volume employ both quantitative and qualitative research methods, and focus on retailing, international trade, relationships between retailers and supplier.

Cooperation and trust between Russia and the European Union (EU), two of the most important international actors, have reached the lowest level since the Cold War. The main bone of contention has been the future of countries situated in Eastern Europe, in the so-called ‘in-between’/’buffer’ region. On the one hand, the EU aims at strengthening links with the six Eastern European partners – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine – by encouraging reforms and by luring them to embrace European core values. However, Russia’s counteractions have mitigated the EU’s plans towards its vicinity - as the case of Ukraine best points out. Apart from the geopolitical competition over the ‘shared’ neighbourhood, the EU-Russia relation has started to depend heavily on the energy issues further complicating the already complex background. Russia uses the energy card as tool to influence the shape of the regional context, whereas the EU responds with a superior technological advantage and a more attractive economic and political agenda. Having this a backdrop, this paper aims to underline that a clear competition between the two players exists, fomented by a fundamental ideological difference in perceiving the outside world.

Most books on transition economies concentrate on their internal fortunes. Few have analysed the effect that the change in the system has had on foreign trade and export performance - this new book redresses that balance

Across the Soviet Bloc, from the 1960s until the collapse of communism, the automobile exemplified the tension between the ideological imperatives of political authorities and the aspirations of ordinary citizens. For the latter, the automobile was the ticket to personal freedom and a piece of the imagined consumer paradise of the West. For the authorities, the personal car was a private, mobile space that challenged the most basic assumptions of the collectivity. The \"socialist car\"-and the car culture that built up around it-was the result of an always unstable compromise between official ideology, available resources, and the desires of an increasingly restless citizenry. InThe Socialist Car, eleven scholars from Europe and North America explore in vivid detail the interface between the motorcar and the state socialist countries of Eastern Europe, including the USSR. In addition to the metal, glass, upholstery, and plastic from which the Ladas, Dacias, Trabants, and other still extant but aging models were fabricated, the socialist car embodied East Europeans' longings and compromises, hopes and disappointments. The socialist car represented both aspirations of overcoming the technological gap between the capitalist first and socialist second worlds and dreams of enhancing personal mobility and status. Certain features of automobility-shortages and privileges, waiting lists and lack of readily available credit, the inadequacy of streets and highways-prevailed across the Soviet Bloc. In this collective history, the authors put aside both ridicule and nostalgia in the interest of trying to understand the socialist car in its own context. Contributors: Elke Beyer, Swiss Institute of Technology; Valentina Fava, Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies and University of Helsinki; Luminita Gatejel, European University Institute, Florence; Mariusz Jastrzab, Kozminski University; Corinna Kuhr-Korolev, University of Bochum; Brigitte Le Normand, Indiana University Southeast; Esther Meier, University of the Federal Armed Forces, Hamburg; Kurt Möser, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology; György Péteri, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim; Eli Rubin, Western Michigan University; Lewis H. Siegelbaum, Michigan State University