PO 458 - Transition to Market Economies in Central and Eastern Europe

The process of economic change in post soviet societies will be explained. The transition process will be viewed from a new institutional economics perspective, a research program that attempts to extend economics by focusing on the social norms and legal rules that underlie economic activity. The course will focus first on the theoretical tools to understand the foundations of economic systems and will emphasize the role of institutions. The broader theoretical perspective will enable us to locate the soviet experiment in a wider theoretical context, which will help us in better understanding the difficulties posed to emerging market economies. The cultural theory of economics and the emergence of economic institutions will be helpful in explaining the different paths of transition. During the second part of the class these theoretical tools will be applied to selected countries in transition. Therefore, each student has to write a term paper analyzing one country in transition. The results have to be presented in class.