Because of altered investment priorities, policymakers in socialist countries can no longer increase the resources devoted to agriculture as they have in the past. Instead, they must seek alternative means of improving agricultural performance. One approach has been to change the structure of socialist agriculture and to foster organizational changes within agricultural units. The contributors to this volume evaluate such reforms and weigh their implications for agricultural output and trade. They examine the normless links being introduced in the USSR and compare Soviet experiences with the successes of Chinese and Hungarian reorganizations; describe and analyze the changes being implemented in the German Democratic Republic, Yugoslavia, and Vietnam; and pay particular attention to the role of Polish agriculture in the production crisis and to agriculture's potential for improving Poland's overall economic performance. The contributors also address issues of infrastructure development, the incentives being developed to foster more efficient allocation of resources within the agricultural sector, and the likely growth of East-West and intra-socialist agricultural trade.

Designed for various types of college courses, this book discusses the interpretation of statistical data in such fields as the economy, business, demography, housing, health, education and crime.

Economic restructuring in Eastern Europe has added a new universe of firms to the pool of cases for study of managerial effectiveness. Yet, in the ideologically charged atmosphere of post-communist transitions, analysis of the functioning of East European firms is sometimes clouded by preoccupation with privatization issues -- whether ownership is held by banks, a state or public agency, foreign investors, or inside or outside shareholders. This volume focuses on the performance of firms as a measure of the effectiveness of corporate governance, and only then attempts to draw conclusions about the relative advantages of different ownership structures.

The essays in this volume document the serious shortcomings of the Hungarian economic reform, which in two decades has brought deteriorating economic performance, declining real wages, a fiscal deficit and severe inflationary pressures. It has proved unexpectedly difficult to substitute a regulated market economy for a centrally planned one. The authors of these essays argue that the problems stem from the incompleteness of the reforms and their compromise character. Today, as the Hungarians prepare to implement more radical measures, constraining the Communist party and rolling back state ownership, they do so under economically difficult conditions.