INDUSTRIAL REFORM IN SOCIALIST COUNTRIES

This book provides an assessment and evaluation of industrial reform in 14 countries. Topics covered in detail include the changing role of the industrial enterprise, the state and private sectors, privatization, pricing, foreign trade and direct foreign investment. Emphasis is placed on events since 1989, the year of "revolution" in Eastern Europe. Few of the countries are now traditionally "socialist". Cuba and North Korea can be so described, economically and politically. China and Vietnam grapple with market-orientated economic reforms while in the firm grip of the Communist Party. The other countries are now at various distances along the road to democracy and the market. These "emerging democracies" or "emerging market economies" face new and formidable challenges in making the transition from predominantly state-owned, poanned economies to market economies based on private property. East Germany has been reunited with the Federal Republic, but the former's industrial sector has been badly hit. The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, on the other hand are disintegrating. Their emerging, independent states face daunting tasks; one critical question is whether they can form voluntary and sustainable economic unions. The book should be essential reading for anyone with an interest in the transition to market economies in post-Communist societies.