EC 358 - Transition to Market Economies in Central and Eastern Europe

The process of economic change in eastern European societies since the late 1980s will be discussed and explained. The development of these economies will be viewed from diverse perspectives: using a macroeconomic approach, as well as standard political economics, and also the tools of constitutional political economics – a research program that draws its sources from classical political economy, but is also inspired by the work of F.A. von Hayek and the Freiburg School of economics. The course will focus first on the theoretical tools to understand the foundations of economic system and will emphasize the role of institutions. The broad theoretical perspective should enable students to analyze the soviet experiment and the transition of former command and control economies to market economies in a context of cultural and institutional influences. During the second unit of the class these theoretical tools will be applied to selected transition economies.