Structural Adjustment and Performance in Living Standards in Developing Countries

Over the years, the World Bank's structural adjustment programmes have been criticized on the grounds that they have adverse effects on the living standards of the people in developing countries. The main objective of this article is to test the hypothesis that the adjustment lending countries have had a superior (or inferior) performance to the non-adjustment lending countries during the 1980s. A new dummy variable regression model is used to test this hypothesis. The model controls for initial conditions, external shocks and other exogenous variables which affect different countries differently. The standard of living is measured by several socioeconomic variables including per capita income, lifeexpectancy at birth, infant mortality rate, and literacy rate.     

Economic transformation in central and Eastern Europe: The role of regional development

The spatial impact of transition in Central and Eastern Europe is becoming an increasingly important question. Two main areas of regional disparity have emerged—core‐periphery contrasts and a West‐East gradient, with more positive development in core and Western areas respectively. A recent embryonic regional policy response is evident in the Visegrad Four countries, including the creation of a distinct Ministry in Hungary, the designation of assisted areas, and the provision of spatially focused instruments. The institutional infrastructure for regional development remains a central problem, including issues of coordination, strategy, implementation and territorial administrative structures. There is both an economic and political rationale for future development, with some potential for the transfer of western experience.     

Basic Problems of Industrial Location in the CEMA Countries of Eastern Europe

Four aspects of industrial location are discussed: reconstruction and expansion of old industrial districts; development of new industrial areas and centers based on newly discovered raw-material and energy resources; industrialization of predominantly agricultural regions to absorb idle manpower, and the location of industry in frontier zones, which is regarded as a new type of industrial location in the socialist system.     

Impact of the Russian Financial Crisis on Stock Exchanges in Central and Eastern Europe

A German economist analyses the structure of capital flows to Central and Eastern European countries following the Russian financial crisis in August 1998. Special attention is devoted to the behavior of equity flows and their impact on the stock exchanges in the region and on enterprises' ability to raise capital. In addition, the paper provides an assessment of the effects of the establishment of pension funds on the development of the stock exchanges and evaluates the prospects for several newly established trading places for stocks of companies from Central and Eastern Europe. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F30, G15, G20. 1 figure, 4 tables, 24 references.     

Nationalism and Imperialism in Eastern Europe

CAROLE ROGEL. The Slovenes and Yugoslavism 1890–1914. Boulder: East European Quarterly, distributed by Columbia University Press, 1977,167 pp., East European Monographs, No. XXIV. ROBERT H. JOHNSTON. Tradition versus Revolution: Russia and the Balkans in 1917. Boulder: East European Quarterly, distributed by Columbia University Press, 1977, 240 pp., East European Monographs, No. XXVIII. ROBERT A. KANN, BÉLA K. KIRÁLY, PAULA s. FICHTNER, eds. The Habsburg Empire in World War i, Essays on the Intellectual, Military, Political and Economic Aspects of the Habsburg War Effort. Boulder: East European Quarterly, distributed by Columbia University Press, 1977, 247 pp., East European Monographs, No. XXIII. LESLIE CHARLES TIHANY. The Baranya Dispute 1918–1921: Diplomacy in the Vortex of Ideologies. Boulder: East European Quarterly, distributed by Columbia University Press, 1978, 138 pp., East European Monographs, No. XXXV.     

Nationalism and Empire in Eastern Europe

Jurij Borys. The Sovietization of Ukraine, 1917–1923. The Communist Doctrine and Practice of National Self-Determination. Revised edition. Edmonton: The Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1980. Pp. xxii, 488; Vera S. Dunham. In Stalin's Time. Middle-class Values in Soviet Fiction. Introduction by Jerry F. Hough. First paperback edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979. Pp. xiv, 283; Taras Hunczak, editor. The Ukraine, 1917–1921: A Study in Revolution. Introduction by Richard Pipes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 1977. Pp. viii, 424; Roy Medvedev, The October Revolution. Foreword by Harrison E. Salisbury. New York: Columbia University Press, 1979. Pp. xix, 240; Rosalind Mitchison, editor. The Roots of Nationalism: Studies in Northern Europe. Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers Ltd., 1980. Pp. vii, 175; Peter J. Potichnyj, editor. Poland and Ukraine, Past and Present. Edmonton: The Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1980. Pp. xiv, 365; Edward C. Thaden, editor. Russification in the Baltic Provinces and Finland, 1855–1914. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981. Pp. xiii, 497; Anthony F. Upton. The Finnish Revolution, 1917–1918. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980. Pp. v, 608.     

Exchange Rate Policy and Economic Growth after the Financial Crisis in Central and Eastern Europe

In a paper on the effects of the global financial crisis in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), a European Union economist reacts to a companion paper (Åslund, 2001) published in the same issue of Eurasian Geography and Economics on the influence of exchange rate policies on the region's recovery. The author argues that post-crisis corrections in current account deficits in CEE countries do not in themselves signal a return to steady economic growth. Disagreeing with Åslund over the role of loose monetary policy in fostering the region's economic problems, he outlines a number of competitiveness problems that remain to be addressed in the 10 new EU member states of CEE, along with improvements in framework conditions supporting future macroeconomic growth.     

Discovering Eastern Europe: Perspectives on WAC's future cooperation with Bulgaria and Eastern European countries

En este artículo yo demuestro la relación entre la formación de WAC como una reacción polítical y moral al régimen de aparteid en Sur áfrica y los cambios en Europa después de la caída del Muro de Berlín. Arqueología como una disciplina en su propio derecho no puede continuar escondida tras objectivismo falso. La necesidad para re-evaluar los problemáticos pasados nacionalista de la mayoría de los países europeos crea un imperative para re-analizar los vínculos entre arqueología y los regímenes nazi y comunista. Es más, yo considero las realidades post-comunistas en Bulgaria y las maneres que los arqueóloqos reaccionan a la comercialización del Control de Herencia Cultural. Yo se?alo áreas que son importantes para cooperación entre el WAC y Bulgaria y otros países de Europa Oriental. Lo más importante son los esfuerzos cooperativos entre el WAC y los arqueólogos de los Balcanes para humanizar la disciplina. Durante los 1990s fue obvio que a través de sus “representaciones visuales” la arqueología contribuyó enormemente a mantener las actitutes nacionalistas que promovieron la guerra en los Balcanes.

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Résumé Dans cet article, je considère la relation entre la création du WAC, comme réaction morale et politique, le régime de l'apartheid en Afrique du Sud et les changements en Europe après la chute du mur de Berlin. L'archéologie, en tant que discipline dans son plein droit, ne peut plus se cacher derrière un faux objectivisme. Le besoin de ré-évaluer le passé nationaliste, trouble de la plupart des Etats Européens crée comme impératif le réexamen des liens entre l'archéologie et les régimes Nazi et Communiste. De plus, j'examine les réalités du post-comunisme en Bulgarie et la fa?on dont les archéologues réagissent à la commercalisation de la gestion du Patrimoine Culturel. Je souligne les domaines qui sont importants pour la coopération entre le WAC et la Bulgarie comme d'autres pays d'Europe de l'Est. Le plus important sont les efforts coopératifs entre le WAC et les archéologues des Balkans pour humaniser la discipline. Dans les années 90, il est devenu évident qu'à travers ses représentations visuelles l'archéologie a contribué énormément à maintenir des attitudes nationalistes qui ont favorisé la guerre dans les Balkans.

     

Revolution and elite transformation in Eastern Europe

The external and internal causes, elite‐mass dynamics, and elite‐level changes that appear, respectively, to have preceded, accompanied, and followed the revolutionary upheavals in Eastern Europe between 1989–1991 are examined comparatively. Particular attention is paid to the possible emergence of national elites that share a consensus on rules of the game and that are unified in defence of democratic institutions. Prospects for such elites are judged to be best in Poland and Hungary, less good in Czechoslovakia, poor in Romania, Bulgaria and Albania, and virtually nonexistent in the Yugoslav republics.