In economics a five-year period is considered to be long enough for the macroeconomic stabilization and microeconomic structural changes to be activated. Five years have passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Not all of the former socialist countries launched comprehensive reform programs at the time of the Berlin Wall fall. By 1990 several countries already had had some experience in reforming socialist economies, while others joined "the club" only recently. Nevertheless, now it seems to be the right time to reflect on the results of transition programs and to draw lessons from the most successful (or the least successful) cases. The main objective for organizing this Conference is therefore to identify, if possible, common principles and regularities, as well as common mistakes, in the transition process.

Conference papers include both general issues papers and country experience papers. The countries represented by the case studies are chosen in such a way so as to embrace both already extensively studied economies (such as Poland or Hungary), and economies about which not much is known but whose experiences could still be very useful to other economies in transition.

The Conference is organized by the National Bank of Croatia. Participants include senior officials from govetnments, central banks. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as well as researchers from universities and institutes. The number of participants was limited to a relatively small number in order to facilitate a "think tank" atmosphere. The National Bank of Croatia intends to organize follow-up conferences every 2 or 3 years in Dubrovnik in order to contribute to a continuing study of the progress being made in transitional economies.

I would like to welcome you all in Dubrovnik. I am sure the beauty and cultural richness of this city provide a perfect environment for meeting with fellow economists and exchanging thoughts and ideas. I wish you all a successful Conference and hope that you will remember it with pleasure.

Chairman of the Scientific and Organizing Committees
Governor of the National Bank of Croatia
Pero Jurkovic

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE

• Mr. Pero Jurkovic - Chairman, National Bank of Croatia
• Mr. Robert A. Mundell, Columbia University
• Mr. Mario I. Blejer, International Monetary Fund
• Mr. Marko Skreb, National Bank of Croatia

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

• Mr. Pero Jurkovic - Chairman, Governor, National Bank of Croatia
• Mr. Ivica Prga, Chief of Staf, National Bank of Croatia
• Mr. Marko Skreb, Executive Director, National Bank of Croatia
• Ms. Lidija Pleadin, Secretary, National Bank of Croatia
• Mr. Mario Kastrapeli, Sales Manager, Travel Agency "Atlas"

LIST OF PARTICIPANTS

"MACROECONOMIC STABILIZATION IN TRANZITION ECONOMIES"

About the book

Most countries in Eastern Europe and the Baltics recorded healthy output growth in 1995 following a precipitous contraction during the early 1990s. Inflation in these countries fell sharply during 1994/95. A sharp deceleration in the pace of price increases was also recorded in many countries of the former Soviet Union, although the level of inflation in most of these countries remains substantial and, more importantly, output has still been declining. The emerging picture is one of renewed growth in countries that showed early determination to implement market-oriented reforms and stabilize their macroeconomy, and of gradual and slow stabilization of output in those countries that entered the process only recently.

The essays collected in this book study in detail both the analytical underpinning of this process - the overall relationships between stabilization, reforms, and growth - as well as the specific stabilization experience in a number of Eastern European and former Soviet Union countries. In addition, the volume discusses some of the central policy issues related to enterprise behavior in post socialist countries and looks at the longer-run dimensions of a successful transition.

"MACROECONOMIC STABILIZATION IN TRANZITION ECONOMIES"
by Mario I. Blejer and Marko Skreb
Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1997

Contributors

• Mario I. Blejer, International Monetary Fund
• Marko Skreb, National Bank of Croatia
• Martha de Melo, The World Bank
• Cevdet Denizer, The World Bank
• Alan Gelb, The World Bank
• Robert A. Mundell, Columbia University
• Marcelo Selowsky, The World Bank
• Matthew Vogel, The World Bank
• Mario Nuti, London Business School
• Stanislaw Wellisz, Columbia University
• Janos Kornai, Collegium Budapest and Harvard University
• Nikica Valentic, Prime Minister of Croatia
• Velimir Sonje, National Bank of Croatia
• Velimir Bole, Economic Institut of Law Faculty
• Ardo H. Hansson, Stocholm School of Economics
• Oleh Havrylyshyn, International Monetary Fund
• Vito Tanzi, International Monetary Fund
• Pero Jurkovic, National Bank of Croatia

About the editors

Mario I. Blejer is senior advisor at the Monetary and Exchange Affairs Department of the International Monetary Fund and currently holds the Walter Rathenau Chair in Economics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He began his career at the IMF in 1980, and during his tenure he has been involved in a wide range of issues, including work on the assessment of the effectiveness of Fund stabilization programs, financial policies, and economic reforms. He was chief of the Fund's Fiscal Studies Division and also worked as head of the Macroeconomic Division of the World Bank in the early 1990s. He was in charge of the preparation of the monetary and financial section of the Joint Study of the Soviet Economy, produced by the IMF together with the World Bank, the OECD, and the EBRD in 1990.

Mario I. Blejer took a B.A. and a M.A. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago. He worked at the Center for Monetary Studies in Latin America (Mexico) and has taught at Boston University, New York University, and the Graduate Institute for International Studies in Geneva. He has Served as a consultant with the Inter-American Development Bank and currently maintains recurrent visiting professorial appointments at the Central European University in Budapest and at the Universidad de San Andres in Buenos Aires. He is currently member of board of editors of the European Journal of Political Economy.

His numerous articles have appeared in international journals including the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, the Review of Economics and Statistics, and others and have dealt with fiscal issues, trade and balance-of-payment problems, monetary economics, and economic stabilization and liberalization in Latin America and in economies in transition. He is the author of several books and has also coedited a large number books on fiscal policies, international macroeconomic issues, and economic and financial reforms. His most recent publications include The Making of Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe: Conversations with Leadine Reformers in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic (with F. Coricelli); Financial Factors in Economic Stabilization and Growth (with L. Leiderman et al.); The Macroeconomic Dimensions of Public Finance (with T. Ter-Minassian); Macroeconomic Stabilization in Transition Economies (with M. Škreb); and Financial Sector Transformation: Lessons from Transition Economies (with M. Škreb).

Marko Škreb received a B.A. (1980), an M.A. (1984), and a Ph.D. (1990) in economics from the Faculty of Economics at the University of Zagreb (Croatia).

He received a certificate from the Salzburg Seminar in American Studies (Austria) in August 1984 and a certificate from the Economics Institute (Boulder, Colonado) in August 1987 as a Fulbright fellow. Also as a Fulbright fellow, he spent academic year 1987 to 1988 at the Department of Economics at the University of Pittsburgh.

He started his professional work as planner at the Bureau of Planning of Croatia and continued it as assistant and then senior assistant at the Faculty of Economics, the Department of National Economy. From September 1991 to November 1992, he was assistant professor at the Department for Macroeconomics and Economic Policy.

He became director of the Croatian National Bank Research and Analysis Department in 1992, which has since expanded into the Research and Statistics Area.

He was appointed economic adviser to the President of the Republic of Croatia in 1995 and was appointed for a six-year term as governor of the Croatian National Bank in 1996, the youngest governor of the central monetary authority ever to be appointed in the new Croatian state. Since 1997, he also has been associate professor at the University of Zagreb.

In 1997, he was awarded Central European Annual Award for Excellence-Best Central Bank Governor and was proclaimed the Best Eastern European Banker by Euromoney Publications. He received the Order of Prince Branimir with Collar for his outstanding contributions to promoting the international position and reputation of the Republic of Croatia and the Order of the Croatian Morning Star with the Figure of Blaz Lorkovic for exceptional achievements in economy.

He is also the author of innumerable articles, books, and other publications and has been an active participant in a number of conferences, seminars, and workshops. His publications include "Croatia: An Insider's View of Transition," Sais Review 18(2) (Summer) (Summer-Fall, 1988); Macroeconomic Stabilization in Transition Economies (coedited with Mario I. Blejer, 1997); "A Paradox of Transition to a Market Economy: How Will the Role of the State Change?" (with Ivo Bicanic), in F.Targetti (ed.), Privatization in Europe: West and East European Experiences (1992); "Service Policy and Development," in S.Sharma (ed.), Development Policy (1992); "The Service Sector in East European Economies: What Role Can It Play in Future Development?" (with Ivo Bicanic), Communist Economies and Economic Transformation 3(2) (1991).

The book reviews

This is the best overall book on post-communist economic transformation to date. It offers overwhelming evidence that radical economic reform provides the greatest economic welfare and the least social costs. − Anders Aslund, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

The book edited by Blejer and Škreb is a wonderful primer on transition economies. Joining the forces of a crowd of distinguished economists, the book takes stock on the state of our knowledge on the topic. Carefully pointing at the differences between the seven countries under study, the book draws a common and convincing thread: Macroeconomic stabilization is a prerequisite to microeconomic successes. − Daniel Cohen, University of Paris (Pantheon-Sorbonne) and Co-director of the International Macroeconomic Programme, CEPR