Building Market Institutions In South Eastern Europe

Annotation A study of impediments to investment and private sector development in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, and Serbia and Montenegro, this title yields fundamental new insights for improving the region's business environment, economic development, and prospects for growth. It is a collaborative effort between the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development that offers important practical ideas for all policymakers and observers concerned with the future of South Eastern Europe. It makes concrete recommendations for reforms that would ease the constraints on domestic and foreign investment, an essential step in sustaining growth and reducing poverty in the region.

This open access book provides answers to key open questions concerning competition policy in emerging economies, with a focus on South Eastern Europe. The contributions address two major issues. One is the design of competition policy and the national competition authorities that enforce it, including the topics of competition advocacy and state aid control; the other is the use of economic methods in competition law enforcement, especially in the cases of relevant market definition and merger control. Many lessons learned in the countries of South Eastern Europe can be applied to the emerging markets of other regions. As such, the findings presented here will be highly relevant for officials and staff at national competition authorities, advisers to legislators shaping national competition policy, competition law professionals, and university students alike.

Addresses the challenge Hungary faces in overcoming threatening deficits in its current and fiscal accounts without hampering economic growth. The Hungarian economy is emerging from a severe four-year recession with positive developments on numerous economic fronts, but with major weaknesses remaining because of large current and fiscal account deficits. This book addresses the challenge Hungary faces in overcoming these deficits without hampering economic growth. The report examines the country's macroeconomic performance in the first half of the 1990s and the stabilization package launched in March 1995. It explores the structure of fiscal revenues, pension reform, and enterprise and banking reforms. The study also looks at the impact of structural reforms on future economic growth and at Hungary's bid to integrate with the European Union.

KfW has been assigned responsibility by the German government and several other donors for projects designed to reconstruct the financial landscapes of Southeast Europe. These activities are recognized as quite successful in building sustainable financial institutions that serve the small end of the market, with special emphasis on microenterprise and small business. The KfW-managed projects have contributed to the overall stability of financial sectors and to economic recovery and growth through employment creation and investment. This book reviews experience gained and analyses the reasons for the successes achieved, options for further improvement, and scope for replicability in other transition and developing economies. A particularly interesting feature is that relatively small amounts of public funds can catalyse financial markets in volatile environments.

Building the 'New Europe' is at the core of the new international economic and political initiatives leading the world through the nineties and toward the twenty-first century. This challenge rests on dual processes: on the one hand, the European Community-wide single market and monetary integration; and, on the other, the East European transition to the market place and integration with Western economies. The volume is divided into two parts. The first section includes essays on the general and specific topics linked to the transitions to a market economy and to a pluralist political system. The second section comprises essays on individual countries, such as Hungary, Poland, Yugoslavia and the Republics of the former Soviet Union.