The Development of Private Property Rights in Communist Hungary and the Theory of Path Dependent Institutional Change

Abstract

In 1959, three years after Russian troops suppressed an armed revolt against the Hungarian state, the Communist government of Hungary adopted a Civil Code that recognized private property rights. This paper asks whether the inclusion of private property rights in the Hungarian Civil Code is consistent with the path dependent theory of institutional change. It concludes that the adoption of these provisions of the Code is consistent with this theory.