Economy & Finance

In this book, six researchers from different professional backgrounds examine the dynamics of the development and reproduction of an authoritarian system. The chapters empirically show how the authoritarian system gradually captures -- and diffuses into -- the society's and the economy's subsystems; describe how it captures the national, intermediate, and micro level sub-structures and reproduces itself as it expands. It empirically analyzes the mechanisms, instruments, and institutions of political capture. The authors distinguish between and explore welfare, development, and recombinant projects and their interrelationships. They study the existence of political favoritism in the case the politically connected enterprises based on an analysis of the corruption risk of 242,183 public tenders. They detail the crony system's functioning and political connections' network aspects in the rapid enrichment of politically connected enterprises. The book exemplifies the vulnerability of democratic institutions to authoritarian and populist regimes, including the tendency for institutionalized corruption to develop systemically, its destructive power in the public and business sectors, and the built and natural environment.

The adjustment problems of public finance in East-Central European countries are often misunderstood and misinterpreted by western scholars. This book contributes to the bridging of the gap between what is being thought by external observers and what the actual public finance reality is, as described by competent local scholars.

Offers an overview of the financial turbulences that have hit the developed economies. Criticizing the excesses of neoliberal capitalism, this title calls for implementing necessary regulatory reforms in the financial sector and for restoration of a proper balance between the functions of the state and the market.

An exemplary study in comparative contemporary history, this monograph looks at rural change in six countries: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.

Besides providing a historical record of the long road from the economic agenda of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution to the present transition from communism, and covering a large geographical range, this book can be considered a staunch defense of market capitalism and liberal democracy.

The book seeks to link theoretical debates on the relevance of trust in economic outcomes with the current arguments about the origins and lessons of the subprime crisis.

Discusses the policies, practices and outcomes of privatization in six transition economies: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Slovenia and Ukraine, paying particular attention to cross-country differences and to interrelations between the processes of privatisation and the political transition from communism to a new system.