The Role of Investment Privatisation Funds in Economies in Economic Transition

Abstract

The pace of economic reforms in the emerging markets of Central and Eastern Europe through such measures as macro stabilisation policies, price liberalisation and currency convertibility has helped to demonstrate that economic transition can be achieved fairly rapidly. Certainly, the challenge for these economies has been to construct, through the new freedom afforded economic agents, (households and firms), an economy that can: (a) facilitate non‐inflationary economic growth, and (b) usher in improvements in social and economic welfare. It is the interconnection between the macroeconomic stabilisation measures (e.g. tight fiscal and monetary policies) and the desire to alter decades of economic decline which has prompted the commitment of these governments to fostering a greater reliance on market forces to improve the overall efficiency of resource utilisation (See Lipton and Sachs, 1990). The global impression is that the competitiveness and industrial restructuring efforts are beginning to alter the economic structure of these countries, which are being met with varying success; (see, for example, Hare and Hughes, 1991).