Abstract

In the early years of transition – after 1989 for Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), after 1991 for the former Soviet Union – reformers in the new governments, as well as their external advisors, commonly advocated a ‘standard reform package’ that consisted of the following elements: (a) macroeconomic stabilization; (b) price and trade liberalization; (c) privatization and enterprise restructuring; and (d) institutional reforms. In this contribution I shall focus entirely on the last element of the package, institutions. It has always seemed to me that the institutional aspect of reform programmes aiming to build well-functioning market-type economies from the ruins of central planning was both very important and difficult to get right.