European Journal of Comparative Economics

Several years have elapsed since the beginning of transition in Eastern Europe, and the profession has learnt a lot about the importance of institutions in the economy and our deep need for additional research on their influence on the interaction of the units that play the economic game. The study of economies that do not fit the paradigm of the competitive market, a field of enquiry that used to belong to the sideline of scientific enquiry, has been joined by leading scientists in the field, who were inspired by the new knowledge gained through the processes of transition and intrigued bthe policy problems posed by transformation of bureaucratically run socialist economies into capitalist market economies. The same institutional and social understanding is equally relevant to questions of conomic development, to the elimination of cleavages between North and South, and to the solution of problems of globalization.