The transition from socialism to capitalism in the formerly communist part of the world is a unique historical process of large-scale institutional change, likely to be remembered as one of the central economic events of the twentieth century. The transition process raises fundamental questions about the workings of the capitalist system and the dynamics of institutional change. Transition sheds new light on these questions because it reveals how the constitutive part of the capitalist system are built up at various speeds, using different models, in varying order, and starting from different initial conditions. This book is an authoritative reader on the economics of transition and emphasizes a view of transition that addresses broader areas of economics, such as development, public finance, and economic history.