Description
Book SynopsisUnderstanding Economic Transitions explains the genesis, operation, and transformation of the centrally-planned socialist economy, which figured prominently in the lives of billions of people in twentieth-century Europe and Asia. Just as importantly, the centrally-planned socialist economy’s demise coincided with the shift from nonindustrial to industrial economy (and de-industrialization in some cases) and the onset of ICT-driven globalization. Using theory, empirics, and selected country case studies, this book teases out the enduring lessons from the myriad and fraught pathways of transition from socialism to capitalism.
Understanding Economic Transitions provides a self-contained, comprehensive, and authoritative treatment of modern economic systems. This textbook has four features of particular use to students: (i) Using the prism of comparative institutionalism, it melds theory and evidence to revisit the varieties of planned and market-driven systems today; (ii) It takes economic planning seriously in theory and practice (central, cooperative, or indicative) as the most prominent marker of the ever-changing boundaries between state and market; (iii) It focuses on the dynamics of systemic transition in formerly socialist countries by contextualizing them in terms of the
whence (central planning), the
how (modalities of transition), and the
whither (illiberal or liberal capitalism) of politico-economic transformation; and (iv) It examines the profound impact on these structural processes of the post-1990 phase of economic globalization. With its clear, comprehensive content and useful pedagogical features, this textbook will prepare students to understand how economies transition and why.
Table of ContentsPART ONE: THEORIES OF COMPARATIVE ECONOMICS.- 1. Economic Systems.- 2. Economic Planning in Various Settings.- PART TWO: TWO CANONICAL STATE SOCIALISMS.- 3. The Soviet CPE I: The Process of Planning.- 4. The Soviet CPE II: The Process of Implementation.- 5. The Chinese CPE: Planning in an Industrializing Economy.- PART THREE: SYSTEMIC TRANSITION IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.- 6. The Market-oriented Transition: Theory.- 7. The Isolationist Russian Road to Capitalism.- 8. The Nationalist Chinese Road to Capitalism.- 9. Two Integrationist Variants: Poland and Vietnam.- PART FOUR: TRANSITION UNDER THE NEW GLOBALIZATION.- 10. Market Integration in the Age of Global Value Chains.- 11. The Developmental State and Political Capitalism.- 12. Comparative Economics Redux.
