Editor’s introduction

Abstract

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides an overview of economic development in the region before 1800. It shows that the academic discussion on serfdom is far from closed but has been broadened by including competing schools of thought such as demography, institutional weaknesses and, more recently, market access and market integration. The book also shows that the achievements of the interwar economies were larger than previously acknowledged in the literature, the reverse is the case for state socialism. It demonstrates that structural change between 1950 and 1989 was less impressive and less far-reaching than claimed by proponents of forced industrialisation. The collapse of communism in Central, East and South-East Europe (CESEE) led to great hopes for the region and Europe as a whole in the early 1990s. In many CESEE countries, the transformation process remains incomplete despite a superficially successful emulation of the West European prototype.