The Economics of Post-Communist Transition

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AuthorOlivier Blanchard
PublisherOUP Oxford
PublishedMay 18 2004
Book FormatPaperback
ISBN-139780198293996
Dimensions8.51 X 5.44 X 0.36 inches
Weight 0.5 pounds
BISAC
CategoriesBusiness & Economics > International - Economics & Trade
LanguageEnglish

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Book Description

Transition in Central and Eastern Europe, as Blanchard points out, has adhered to a U-shaped response in terms of economic output--that is, a sharp decline in output followed by a recovery. Today, most of the countries of Central Europe seem to have enjoyed a steady upswing, while most Eastern European nations still appear to be near the bottom of the U. This book traces the courses, causes, and implications of this pattern, arguing that two basic mechanisms dominate such transition. The first is the reallocation between the state and private sectors, with a contraction of activities in the former and an expansion in the latter. The second is the restructuring of the old state sector, with the opportunity for large improvements in productivity.

Against this background, the book's focus shifts to three particular factors: the adjustment of employment and wages in state firms to the initial shock of reduced demand for their goods; the dynamics of restructuring and privatization; and the relationship between reallocation, restructuring, and traffic in the labor market. The final section summarizes the discussion, and in doing so builds a general equilibrium model as a preliminary to the analysis of three sets of issues: the role of unemployment benefits and privatization `ules; the interaction between transition and fiscal policy; and the evolution of the support for reform. The model is then used to address the thorny issue of the ideal speed for economic reform.

The latest offering from a distinguished expert on the economics of transition, this is one of the first book-length analyses of the process of moving from a centrally-planned to a market economy.

Author Bio

Olivier Blanchard is the C. Fred Bergsten Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and the Robert M. Solow Professor of Economics emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A citizen of France, Blanchard has spent most of his professional life in the United States. After obtaining his PhD in economics from MIT in 1977, he taught at Harvard University and returned to MIT in 1982. He was chair of the economics department from 1998 to 2003. In 2008, he took a leave of absence to serve as economic counsellor and director of the research department at the International Monetary Fund where he stayed until 2015. He then joined the Peterson Institute.

Blanchard has worked on a wide set of macroeconomic issues, including the role of monetary and fiscal policy, speculative bubbles, the labor market and determinants of unemployment, economic transition in former communist countries, and the nature of the Global Financial Crisis. In the process, he has worked with numerous countries and international organizations.

Blanchard is the author of many books and articles, including two textbooks on macroeconomics, one at the graduate level with Stanley Fischer and the other at the undergraduate level. He is a past editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the NBER Macroeconomics Annual and founding editor of American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics. He is a fellow and former Council member of the Econometric Society, a past president of the American Economic Association, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Source: Peterson Institute for International Economics