Social Market Economy as an Alternative to the Washington Consensus in the Western Balkans

Ruzhdi Matoshi and Isa Mulaj

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Nearly three decades after the beginning of transition from communism to democracy and open market economy in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), the Washington Consensus in general received the mark as a failure. While the experience from the CEE apart from common results showed considerable variations, the package of reforms is questioned even in the long-term perspective, especially for producing high social costs. Recent mass emigrations from the Western Balkans due to poor economic conditions and from the Middle East, have brought to attention the credibility of exporting or imposing the American type of democracy, and with it, the Washington Consensus as a model of economic transformation and development. But is there an alternative? It already existed even before the systemic changes in CEE began, and can be more preferable even now to the countries that have to undergo a considerable economic transformation. That is the social market economy, which still can be applied in some countries that have lagged behind in transition. This paper explores the perspective of introducing and implementing such a model in the Western Balkan countries, with a reference to the role by the state, taxes, income distribution, and business development.

Keywords: Washington Consensus; Social Market Economy; Western Balkans; economic reforms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B41 F02 P16 P51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pke and nep-tra
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published in Economic Vision 11-12.6(2019): pp. 180-191

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/98460/1/MPRA_paper_98460.pdf original version (application/pdf)

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:pra:mprapa:98460

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().