There is no magic formula for balancing fiscal policy and economic performance. As a scholar and policy advisor, Vito Tanzi has made a major contribution to identifying links between public finance and macro- and microeconomic consequences. His findings bear relevance in both developing and industrialized economies. The essays in this volume and its companion, Fiscal Policy and Economic Reforms, highlight many of these interconnected issues, for instance the interaction between budgetary policy and economic aggregates, such as employment, inflation and growth, and the implication of economic linkages for designing fiscal policies. Further areas of interconnection include expenditure policies and alternative deficit financing strategies, and the trade-offs between macro- and microeconomic objectives. The list of contributors includes Max Corden, John Makin, Ronald McKinnon and Richard Musgrave.

The post-socialist transitions in the East and the abandonment of state-led development (dirigisme) in the South comprise one of the most important global phenomena to unfold at the end of this century. Rebuilding Capitalism contains innovative work by well-known specialists in the fields of economic reform, macroeconomics, and development. It offers a global and integrative perspective on the theory and practice of economic reform after socialist and dirigisme. The book considers the historical origins of the current wave of market-oriented reform, reviews existing controversies on the design of economic reforms, and offers alternative criteria to evaluate policy performance. In particular it focuses on issues of macroeconomic adjustment and stabilization, liberalization policies, reform of the state, and interactions between economic and political transformation during the course of systematic transformation. A distinctive feature of this volume is that it covers a wide range of reform experiences from various countries. The analysis of post-socialist reform includes Eastern Europe, Russia, China, and cases of reforming socialism in Africa and Latin America (including a special chapter on Cuba). Post-dirigisme transitions are examined for Latin America and East Asia.