Countries with Transitional Economies are Abandoning Political Reform
On December 12, 2013, the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) presented its report ‘Stuck in Transition?’ at the HSE. The report focuses on post-Soviet and post-socialist countries.
Jeromin Zettelmeyer, EBRD Deputy Chief Economist, and Alan Rousso, EBRD Managing Director for External Action and Political Affairs, who co-presented the report, emphasized the correlation between stalled economic progress and insufficient political reform.
Economic reforms in transitional countries have been stagnating since the mid-2000s, the bank analysts reported. Countries with better developed political systems have succeeded in moving further forward in the way of reform than other nations. But after the 2008-2009 crisis, they also started abandoning the political reforms capable of restoring the growth of productivity and stimulating economic growth.
The presentation was followed by a discussion. Timothy Frye, Academic Supervisor of the HSE International Center for the Study of Institutions and Development and Director of the Columbia University Harriman Institute, spoke about the correlation between democracy and economic reforms. Natalia Akindinova, Director of the HSE Centre of Development Institute; Andrey Klimenko, Head of the HSE Faculty of Public Administration Department of Theory and Practice of Public Administration; Alexander Chepurenko, Dean of the HSE Faculty of Sociology; and other HSE experts also participated in the discussion.See also:
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