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The role of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Czechoslovakia's stabilization program was investigated with respect to their influence on the degree of resource mobilization and the level of policy discussions. The two institutions, which did not maintain relations with the country prior to 1989, contributed to the success of the program through their support of resource transfers. The program's success, however, should also be attributed to other coincidental factors such as tourism and location.

The extent and causes of inflation in the Czech and Slovak Republics for the period 1985-1991 are discussed. The period under consideration marked the transition of those countries from centrally planned economies to free market economies. Inflation was rampant in most countries undergoing the transition. However, the two republics experienced the least inflation, a fact attributed to good economic planning.

The State After Statism: New State Activities in the Age of Liberalization Jonah D. Levy (ed) Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA, USA, 2006, 488pp, $24.95 How time can change perspectives! [...]

Empirical evidence shows that high inflation rates and insufficient productivity growth undermine the rate of protection provided by the exchange rate regime to domestic industries in transition economies. The experience of Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Romania during 1992-1997 supports this conclusion as well as the relationship between exchange rate regimes and commercial policy. It was also found that policymakers were pressured to increase trade barriers to deal with the real appreciation of currencies.

Because the European Union (EU) has sought from its earliest history to accommodate nonmember countries through various preferential arrangements, the further expansion toward the eastern part of Europe is bound to affect the benefits that partners in these preferential arrangements can count on. The effects of entering transition economies (TEs) can be direct, as a result of the TE obtaining access to the four freedoms of the EU. But they can also be indirect, resulting from the way enlargement alters the calculus of EU benefits and costs for present EU members. This paper examines the various preferential arrangements and the major effects that are likely to be experienced by them as a result of the eastward extension of the EU. Given the EU's foreign-policy objectives and the sizable changes that have occurred in Europe, the paper argues that it might now be the appropriate occasion to reexamine those preferential arrangements. The article pays special attention to the ramification of eastward expansion on TEs that will not now or ever qualify for EU membership, yet remain of strategic concern to the EU., Friedmann Muller and Susanne Ott. 1998. Bridging Divides -- Transformation in Eastern Europe: Connecting Energy and Environment. Baden-Baden, Nomos Verlagsgesellscheft, pp.309. When the Czech premier Klaus boasted in 1995 that [...]