This is the first comprehensive study of the economics and politics of postsocialism in thirty transition countries in Europe and Asia. The author, the architect of Poland's successful reforms, compares initial conditions, shifting target models, paths to reform, and progress to date. He offers sensible policy alternatives to the Washington Consensus.

Kolodko, former finance minister of Poland, considers the links between issues of globalization and post-communist transition, the two most important economic features of the turn of the century. He discusses the pattern of economic growth and contraction of the past fifty years, and reviews the options for the next half century. He accounts for the severity of the transitional recession in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union as a result of both the legacies of the past and current policy mistakes, but demonstrates how structural reforms and gradual institutional building have enabled...

Grzegorz W. Kolodko, one of the world's leading authorities on economics and development policy and a key architect of Poland's successful economic reforms, applies his far-reaching knowledge to the past and future of the world economy, introducing a framework for understanding our global situation that transcends any single discipline or paradigm.

Deploying a novel mix of scientific evaluation and personal observation, Kolodko begins with a brief discussion of misinformation and its perpetuation in economics and politics. He criticizes the simplification of complex economic and social...