Transition to a market economy: A retrospective comparison of China with countries of the former Soviet block

Marek Dabrowski

Acta Oeconomica, 2020, vol. 70, issue s, 15-45

Abstract: In the 1990s and early 2000s, comparison of transition strategies of China versus those in Central and Eastern Europe raised controversies in the economic and political science literature. However, differences between China and the countries of the former Soviet bloc in their transition strategies resulted not necessarily from a deliberate political choice but from different initial conditions. Low-income and largely rural China, after its first radical step (de-collectivisation of agriculture in 1978), could move more gradually due to its underindustrialisation and retaining administrative control over the economy. The over-industrialised Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and former Soviet Union (FSU) countries where the previous command system of economic management spontaneously collapsed at the end of 1980s, did not have such an option. They had to conduct market-oriented reforms as quickly as they could, with all the associated economic and social pain. Regardless of speed and strategy of transition, almost all previously centrally-planned economies, including China, completed building basic foundations of a market system by the early 2000s although the quality of economic and political institutions and policies differ between the sub-regional groups and individual countries.

Keywords: post-communist transition; initial conditions; industrialisation; public sector; economic freedom; political freedom; democracy; business climate; political economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 E62 H50 H51 H52 H53 H63 P24 P26 P51 P52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1556/032.2020.00024 (application/pdf)
subscription

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aka:aoecon:v:70:y:2020:i:s:p:15-45

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
Akadémiai Kiadó Zrt., P. O. Box 245, H-1519 Budapest, Hungary
https://akjournals.com/

Access Statistics for this article

Acta Oeconomica is currently edited by Mihályi, Péter

More articles in Acta Oeconomica from Akadémiai Kiadó, Hungary
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kriston, Orsolya ().