Description
Book SynopsisIn this volume, leading social scientists, empirical analysts, and policy practitioners demonstrate the various ways in which the insights of Janos Kornai, a renowned early analyst and critic of the command economies of Eastern European communist states, are stirring academic and policy discussions about current challenges. While dissecting the economic theories and practices in the Soviet Bloc, Kornai devised and applied concepts such as soft-budget constraints, rush versus harmonic growth, surplus versus shortage economy, non-Walrasian equilibrium, bureaucratic coordination, and the invisible power of the communist party. These concepts are commonly applied to a variety of issues in the contexts of fundamental transformation. The cases discussed in this volume include the transitional paths of postcommunist economies, the pitfalls of East European market-building, economic repercussions of the dissolution of Yugoslavia, and the process of integration in the Eurozone. The volume concludes with Janos Kornai's remarks about the value of democracy and other research topics, delivered at the conference celebrating his 90th birthday in February, 2018.
Table of ContentsDóra Piroska and Miklós Rosta
Engaging with János Kornai’s Scholarship: Systems, Institutions, and Values
Iván Szelényi
János Kornai’s Theory of Socialism
Gerard Roland
Thinking Capitalism with János Kornai
Péter Mihályi
The Theories of János Kornai and a Less-known Hungarian Economist, Ferenc Jánossy, on Unbalanced Economic Growth
Geoffrey M. Hodgson
Mistaking Markets: Seeing Markets Where They Do Not Exist
Bruno Dallago
The System Paradigm and the European Monetary Union: What János Kornai’s Contribution to Comparative Economics Can Suggest to the Eurozone
László Jankovics
Independent Fiscal Institutions: “New Kids on the Block” in Economic Policy
Éva Krenyácz
Modified Management Thinking in Health Care: The Impacts of Centralization and the Soft Budget Constraint
József Péter Martin
Resource Reallocation and Ambiguous Economic Performance in a Captured State: The Case of Hungary
János Kornai
About the Value of Democracy and Other Challenging Research Topics: Closing Remarks at the Conference on February 22, 2018
List of Contributors
Index
