MARIE LAVIGNE, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Economics, taught at the Universities of Strasbourg (1959-69), Paris (1969-91), and Pau (1991-96). At the University of Paris, she chaired the Centre for International Economics of the Socialist Countries, the first academic research unit in France dealing with centrally planned economies. In 1996 she retired from the university and is now Senior Research fellow at ISMEA (Institute for Applied Mathematics and Economics), Paris. She has travelled extensively in Eastern Europe and Russia, both before and after the collapse of the communist regimes. She h...