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• Varieties of development paths in post communist countries with special regard to the transition in Hungary

  5-25

  Miklos Szanyi

  Views:

  142

  Transition in Central and Eastern Europe was carried out in various ways. However, the different countries’ current economic structure, institutions and main economic performance measures are rather similar. The question asked is whether these countries follow a specific kind of development model? What seems likely is that they differ substantially from CIS countries in many aspects. But they also seem to differ from existing models of capitalism more than they do from each-other. Based on this information, the varieties of capitalism literature assumes that such a model does indeed exist. However, no comprehensive positive description of the model has so far been provided. This paper tries to define the main elements of the CEE capitalist models. These are small open economies, with close integration into the world economy through foreign investments, a relatively limited and declining role of state redistribution, the problems of dual economic structure and insufficient job creation, a relatively large shadow economy and “business capture”-type cronyism. Further research is required to properly describe the elements and interactions among them.

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classifications: D72, E65, P31

• Corrupt German companies? A political economy approach to German corporate scandals of recent years

  97-114

  Zoltan Adam

  Views:

  103

  The paper seeks to explain German corporate scandals of recent years from a political economy point of view, adopting a 'varieties of capitalism' approach. Scandals have taken place in two realms of corporate activities: (i) in industrial relations defined by the system of Mitbestimmung that my well constrain corporate restructuring, and (ii) in export markets where corrupting foreign officials has always been a widespread practice among large exporting companies, including export-intensive German manufacturing corporations. In recent years institutional changes in domestic and international markets, including regulatory regimes, have significantly altered the set of viable options for corporate strategies. In consequence, large German companies have to adjust to new circumstances. Although the institutional underpinnings of coordinated market economies have been changing, German corporatism is not set to vanish yet.

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classification: P16, F55 

• The Relevance of the Washington Consensus for the Post-communist Countries

  5-25

  Peter Mihalyi

  Views:

  217

  The Washington Consensus (WC) is 20 years old now. With hindsight, its main significance is the unification of the normative economics. Prior to the WC, it was widely accepted that different policies should be pursued in the developed and in the underdeveloped economies. It was a sheer coincidence that the emergence of WC occurred a few months before the collapse of the communist systems of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Many scholars believe that the WC is responsible for the recurring economic crisis of the last two decades. I reject this view. A 200-year track record confirms that depressions and financial crisis have been always the intrinsic components of market economies – for the reasons identified by Marx and Schumpeter long time ago.

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classification: F02, F23, F41, P11, P36

• The Evolution of Welfare Systems: Social Democratic and Social Autocratic Paths

  46-65

  Imre Lévai

  Views:

  109

  Students of global and regional political economy have produced a vast literature on divergent paths of capitalist evolution. The evolution of welfare systems, in general, and their different paths, in particular, have also widely been analysed in economic and social studies. The author, joining the discussions from a world system perspective, makes an attempt at presenting a global and regional political economic comparison of the seemingly similar welfare systems that have evolved in Northern and in Eastern Europe. The apparent convergence of the Sovietic type to the Nordic social democratic pattern is scrutinised, distinguishing it from the latter by the “social autocratic” label.

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) kód: I31, I38, P36, P38

• The formation and development of employment law in the context of socio-economic processes

  63-88

  Tamas Prugberger

  Views:

  381

  The study explores the formation and development of the institutional system of employment law, in connection with socio-economic demands and economic, technical and technological developments. It demonstrates what factors play a role in the fact that the vast majority of companies, and the paternalistic working relationships that form within them, have been replaced by the patterns of big business and big business hierarchical culture. The study shows how the characteristic employment law framework of classical capitalism, which was emplyer-friendly and placed anti-social pressure on the interests of the employee, gave way to the philosophy of the social market and was influenced by the employee-friendly concepts of the welfare state. The article further analyses those social factors which in today's employment law system have once again started to subordinate the interests of the employee to those of the employer.