Click here to download

The two distinct systems of socialist Albania and SFR Yugoslavia: A comparative analysis using Kornai’s ‘Main Line of Causality’
Journal Title: HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY 
Author/s: Eszter Kazinczy 
Year:  2021 Issue: 2 Language: English 
Pages:  21 Pg. 31-51 FullText PDF:  111 KB
DOI:  10.3280/SPE2021-002002
(DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation:  clicca qui   and here 


This paper compares two peculiar country cases within the former European socialist bloc: Albania and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Based on János Kornai’s ‘main line of causality’, we compare the two countries’ main char-acteristics from the end of the Second World War until the fall of their socialist re-gimes. The goal of the paper is to demonstrate that the two neighbouring countries had similar political and economic intentions following the Second World War; yet despite this fact the analysed countries’ development paths gradually diverged. As a result, the two systems differed fundamentally by the 1970s. Analysing the time-period in question is crucial to understand Albania’s and the successor Yugoslav states’ subsequent economic development.
Keywords: economic history, Albania, Yugoslavia, Kornai, communism
Jel Code: E19, N14, N44

  1. Anderson G.M. and Boettke P.J. (1997). Soviet venality: A rent-seeking model of the communist state, Public Choice, 93: 37-53.
  2. Babić M. and Primorac E. (1986). Some causes of the growth of the Yugoslav external debt, Soviet Studies, 38(1): 69-88., DOI: 10.1080/09668138608411623
  3. Bartlett W. (1997). The transformation and demise of self-managed firms in Croatia, Macedonia FRY and Slovenia. In Sharma S. (ed.) (1997). Restructuring Eastern Europe. The microeconomics of the transition process, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar.
  4. Bednar J. and Page S. E. (2018). When Order Affects Performance: Culture, Behavioral Spillovers, and Institutional Path Dependence, American Political Science Review, 112(1): 82-98., DOI: 10.1017/S0003055417000466
  5. EBRD. (1996). Transition report 1996. Infrastructure and savings, London, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
  6. Gligorov V. (1998). Yugoslav economics facing reform and dissolution. In Wagener H.-J. (ed.). Economic thought in communist and post-communist Europe. London, Routledge.
  7. Gligorov V. (2004). Socialism and the Disintegration of SFR Yugoslavia. In Mrak M., Rojec M. and Silva-Jáuregui C. (eds.) Slovenia. From Yugoslavia to the European Union. Washington, D.C., The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank.
  8. INSTAT (1991). Statistical Yearbook of Albania, Institute of Statistics, Albania, Tirana, -- http://www.instat.gov.al/en/publications/books/1991/statistical-yearbook-of-albania-1991/ (Accessed: 22/06/2021).
  9. Jowitt K. (1992). New World Disorder. the Leninist Extinction, Berkeley, University of California Press.
  10. Kaser M. (2001). Economic Continuities in Albania’s Turbulent History, Europe-Asia Studies, 53(4): 627-637., DOI: 10.1080/09668130120052926
  11. Kitschelt H. (1992). The Formation of Party Systems in East Central Europe, Politics & Society, 20(1): 7-50., DOI: 10.1177/0032329292020001003
  12. Kornai J. (1992). The socialist system. The political economy of communism, Oxford, Clarendon Press.
  13. Kornai J., Maskin E. and Roland G. (2003). Understanding the Soft Budget Constraint, Journal of Economic Literature, 41(4): 1095-1136., DOI: 10.1257/002205103771799999
  14. Kornai J. (2008). From socialism to capitalism. Eight essays, Budapest-New York, Central European University Press.
  15. Koźmiński A. K. (2008). How it all happened. Essays in political economy of transition, Warsaw, Difin.
  16. Lavigne M. (1999). The economics of transition. From socialist economy to market economy, Houndmills, Palgrave.
  17. Lydall H. (1984). Yugoslav Socialism. Theory and Practice, Oxford, Clarendon Press.
  18. Martin R. and Sunley P. (2006). Path dependence and regional economic evolution, Journal of Economic Geography, 6(4): 395-437.
  19. Mihályi P. and Szelényi I. (2020). Kornai on the affinity of systems. Is China today an illiberal capitalist system or a communist dictatorship? Public Choice, July 2020,
  20. Mrak M. (1992). Debt Conversions in Yugoslavia, OECD Development Centre Working Papers, No. 54, OECD Publishing, Paris,
  21. OECD (1962). OECD Economic Surveys. Yugoslavia 1962, OECD Publishing, Paris,
  22. OECD (1990). OECD Economic Surveys. Yugoslavia 1990, OECD Publishing, Paris,
  23. Papazoglou C. (2005). The economies of South Eastern Europe. Performance and challenges, Houndmills, Palgrave Macmillan.
  24. Perović J. (2007). The Tito–Stalin split. A reassessment in light of new evidence, Journal of Cold War Studies, 9(2): 32-63
  25. Ramet S. P. (2006). The Three Yugoslavias. State-building and Legitimation, 1918-2005, Washington, D.C., Woodrow Wilson Center Press.
  26. Roland, G. (2000). Transition and Economics. Politics, Markets, and Firms, Cambridge, Massachusetts, MIT Press.
  27. Roland G. (2010). The Long-Run Weight of Communism or the Weight of Long-Run History?, WIDER Working Paper, 2010/083, Helsinki, UNU-WIDER.
  28. Rusino D. (1977). The Yugoslav Experiment 1948-1974, Berkeley, University of California Press.
  29. Sandström P. and Sjöberg Ö. (1991). Albanian Economic Performance. Stagnation in the 1980s, Soviet Studies, 43(5): 931-947.
  30. Schnytzer A. (1982). Stalinist economic strategy in practice. The case of Albania, New York, Oxford University Press.
  31. Schrenk M., Ardalan C. and Tatawy N. A. E. (1979). Yugoslavia. Self-management socialism and the challenges of development. Report of a mission sent to Yugoslavia by the World Bank, Baltimore-London, The Johns Hopkins University Press.
  32. Schwartz S. (2009). ‘Enverists’ and ‘Titoists’ – Communism and Islam in Albania and Kosova, 1941-99: From the Partisan Movement of the Second World War to the Kosova Liberation War, Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, 25(1): 48-72., DOI: 10.1080/13523270802655613
  33. Sjöberg Ö. and Wyzan M. J. (eds.) (1991). Economic change in the Balkan states. Albania, Bulgaria, Romania and Yugoslavia, London, Pinter Publishers.
  34. Uvalic M. (1992). Investment and Property Rights in Yugoslavia. The Long Transition to a Market Economy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
  35. Uvalic M. (2010). Transition in Southeast Europe. Understanding Economic Development in Institutional Change, United Nations University, WIDER Working Paper, 2010/041, Helsinki, UNU-WIDER.
  36. Vahabi M. (2021). Introduction: a special issue in honoring Janos Kornai, Public Choice, 187: 1-13.
  37. Varsori A. (2012). Italy and the end of communism in Albania, 1989-1991, Cold War History, 12(4): 615-635., DOI: 10.1080/14682745.2011.650633
  38. Vaughan-Whitehead D. (1999). Albania in crisis. The predictable fall of the shining star, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar.
  39. Woodward S. L. (1995). Socialist Unemployment. The Political Economy of Yugoslavia, 1945-1990, Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press.

Eszter Kazinczy, in "HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY" 2/2021, pp. 31-51, DOI:10.3280/SPE2021-002002

   

FrancoAngeli is a member of Publishers International Linking Association a not for profit orgasnization wich runs the CrossRef service, enabing links to and from online scholarly content