The rural sector in transition economies

Karen Brooks and John Nash

Chapter 30 in Handbook of Agricultural Economics, 2002, vol. 2, Part 1, pp 1547-1592 from Elsevier

Abstract: Inefficiencies in agriculture in Eastern and Central Europe and the Soviet Union contributed to the financial collapse of the socialist system. Yet during the transition, agricultural production has declined. Low profits, high real interest rates, slow progress in reforms in some countries, and uncertainty have restricted producers' ability to respond to reforms. When China's collectivized agriculture was dismantled after 1978, producers' incentives improved and the economy remained stable, fueling a large supply response. In several Central European countries where reforms are well advanced, agricultural growth has resumed. The difficulties of ten years of rural transition offer lessons about the high costs of embedded distortions and inflexibility in institutional evolution.

JEL-codes: Q00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B7P5B ... 115b37e9fa8b28277747
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Handbook of Agricultural Economics from Elsevier
Series data maintained by Heidi Boesdal ().