by Peter J. D. Wiles Professor Emeritus University of London There are two sorts of writers of prefaces: the obliging and the disobliging. Surely Peter MiMlyi knows where to place me in this taxonomy. For the most part I write my own irrelevant opinions, but there was one act of gross interference: my insistence on a point he had already quietly made, the greater stability of the production of consumer goods under Communism even of food, if we exclude bad harvests. The many Marxist and some other scholars who wrote about Dr. Mih

This volume is meant to be a modest contribution to the ongoing debate about the transitions away from the administrative planning environment typical of the former communist regimes. The central subject matter is a fairly special one, namely the privatization of these economies together with the restoration and effective monitoring of property rights. These are paramount tasks of the ongoing transformations once progress toward pOlitical democracy is secured. Though I would not allot divestment of existing state-owned assets the kind of pivotal importance that some observers reserve for it,...

The growing disparity between the developed and the developing countries has once again rekindled the debate about the relative merits of foreign investment as means whereby the developed countries can help the devel oping countries in both achieving a reasonable rate of growth and also from preventing the widening gap between the North and the South from widening even further. This renewed interest in the debate was most sharply highlighted at the recently concluded North-South economic summit conference at Cancun, Mexico. There, the United States took the position that massive increases in...

Three different lines of approach have contributed to the theory of optimal planning. One approach considers the problem from the view-point of a national government and its adviser, the econometrician planning speci alist. The government can, if this is thought to be desirable, stimulate investment in certain directions and discourage other economic activities. By various fiscal devices, it can influence both the total level and the distribution of investment funds over different sectors of production. Also, in many countries, a public agency plays some kind of coordinat ing role in the...

This book is about the specification of linear econometric models, and for this reason some important related fields have been deliberately omitted. I did not want to discuss the problems of parameter-estimation, at least not in any detail, as there are other books on these problems written by specialized statisticians. This book is about the models them selves and macro-economic models in particular. A second related sub ject is the policy decision that can be made with the help of a model. While I did write a chapter on policy decisions, I limited myself to some extent because of my views...

One would think states and peoples have had so many bad experiences with inflation that politicians at the helm of these states would do everything within their power to avoid inflation and, in particular, its very intensive shape, i. e. hyperinflation. However, this has not been the case. After the big inflations of the twenties and the post-war inflations of the fourties, we still witness intensive, economically, socially and politically extremely painful inflationary processes. And the eighties will be particularly engraved in history as a period in which the inflation has assumed an...

PETER COFFEY Since the appearance of the second edition of this work - which was so quickly out of print - so much has happened in Europe. In the EEC itself, 1989 was a watershed year concerning the Community's moves towards the creation of the Single European Market (SEM) by the end of 1992. Early in the year, the appear ance of the De10rs Report on Economic and Monetary Union in the European Community, was followed by an agreement, at the European Summit, in June, to begin the first stage of this union in the Summer of 1990. As a counterpart to this and other agree ments, seen by trade...

I. The concept of competition played a central role in the very first attempts to apply the tools of economics to the analysis of politics. Adopting Hotelling's (1929) industrial organization model of imperfect competition in markets in which space has a predominant role, Downs (1957), following on some perceptive insights of Schumpeter (1942), was able to formulate a model of electoral competition in which political parties, seeking the support of citizens, compete against each other in offering policies designed to elicit their vote. Downs' model and the numerous variants to which it gave...

At the end of 1992, things will never again be the same inside the European Economic Community (EEC), because, as that year draws to a close, the aims of the Single Act of European Union (SAEU), which became law in July, this year, will have become effective - thus creating a 'real' Common Market. This will mean that there will no longer be any obstacles to the free movement of goods between the Member States. Equally, and for the first time in the EEC's history, internal capital movements will be absolutely free, there will no longer be any exchange controls and it will be possible to freely...

It was Lenin's genius to recognize the importance of [socialist] system with all the trappings of embellishing the democracy. If the people want a constitution. give them one. and even include the bill of rights. If they want a parliament, give them that too. And a system of courts. If they want a federal system create that myth as well. Above all, let them have e 1 ecti ons, for the act of voti ng is what the common man most clearly associates with democracy. Give them all these, but make sure that they have no effect on how things are run. - G. Warren Nutter Most research by Western...