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This chapter reviews the arrival, adoption and use of computers in Communist Europe of the 1950s through the 1980s and includes a discussion of post Communist computing in the region into the 2000s. It discusses Soviet-style management of the economy and technology and provides a detailed analysis of developments in Russia, East Germany, Poland and other Comecon countries. Unlike Western Europe where computing spread rapidly and was widely used, diffusion was slower and less effective in command-controlled economies. This chapter provides detailed information about applications, volumes of machines installed, and public policies intended to facilitate diffusion of technologies.

This chapter reviews the main changes in the agricultural economy and policies that took place after the first decade of transition. It discusses the main developments in Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and in China.

The authors report levels of income inequality and poverty in four Central and Eastern European countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Russia. Unlike many previous studies that examine transition economies, they aggregate the detailed individual-level income surveys made available through the efforts of the Luxembourg Income Study at the regional level of analysis. Although national-level investigations have contributed much to our understanding of the income distribution dynamics, these studies mask intracountry variance in levels of income inequality and thus may not capture the true distribution of household income and accurately reflect individual well-being. Accordingly, the authors compute summary measures of inequality and relative poverty rates, using both local and national relative poverty lines, for the most recent waves of data available.

The study focuses on the behavior of mortality rates of fourteen countries in Eastern and Central Europe during the transition period. Mortality rates differ from country to country: the Czech Republic has the most improved life expectancy rate while Russia and the Baltic States having the highest mortality rates and hence lower life expectancy. Different factors are considered by the study which affects the mortality rates of these countries. However, the study also considers the increased mortality rates in these countries as either a continuation of the unhealthy lifestyle under the USSR or an effect of other events like the World War II or the famine in the early 1920's that affected the USSR. Numerous factors are also cited by the study. The study finally proposes solutions to this unexplainable rise in the mortality rates of these countries.

In this chapter, the authors examine the changes in the labour sector of the subject-countries during the transition period. The effects of these changes can result in either full employment or unemployment which is in-turn can be categorised into open and hidden unemployment. Unemployment — which, as already said in the previous chapters — affects the psychological well being of the people resulting in a psychosocial stress which affects the physical health of the people. During the transition period, most of the Eastern European countries copied the labour structure of the western countries which presented a lot of changes in the labour market. This chapter also deals with the policies put in place by the governments of these countries in order to prevent or at least lessen the stress-related mortality rate.

The transition to the market economy has brought about a large and abrupt recession and significant increases in unemployment in most countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. This chapter discusses the factors which caused this transformational recession. These include the variations in initial structural and institutional conditions, decline of institutional capabilities, and changes in the property rights regime and microeconomic incentives. It also discusses the key elements for an institutions-focused transition strategy.

This chapter deals with the relationship of the rapid rising of impoverishment which has affected a substantial number of the populations of Eastern and Central Europe in recent years. Poverty in the region rose to 70 million during the transition period from 1989 to 1995. Transition to market economy caused declines in incomes per capita of the people in the region which in turn affected the social and economic security of the people. As a result of poverty, a rapid increase in poverty-related diseases took place. These poverty-related diseases may also be caused by poor nutrition and decreased consumption of foods. These poverty-related diseases are coupled with poor health-care services in these countries. Poverty affects every aspect of a person’s life.

This concluding chapter focuses on rebuilding communities, emphasizing the importance of resettlement and access to natural capital. It argues that although a revitalized private sector is essential for growth, its relationship to the state can be problematic in new multi-party political systems. It also emphasizes some important differences between historical experiences of post-war reconstruction and those in contemporary Africa, and discusses the lessons for Africa from the economic and political transitions in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union (EE-FSU).

This chapter assesses Mozambique's privatization programme. It begins by outlining why the state intervened in the economy, highlighting both ‘defensive’ and ‘offensive’ motives. It then examines the first phase of privatization in the 1980s and describes the difficulties of the implementation and the gradual erosion of the state's strategic vision of privatization into a process by which assets were sold off almost indiscriminately. It also discusses the interaction of domestic and donor pressures to accelerate privatization in the 1990s. The impact of privatization and the role of economic strategy are also examined. The chapter concludes by emphasizing the relevance of the Eastern Europe and former Soviet Union (EE-FSU) transition experiences and the crucial need to invest in regulatory capacity to protect the public interest and to reintegrate privatization into a strategic vision of the economy's future.

This chapter provides an overview of the past and expected developments of food security and socio-political stability within the region, and the potential role the region may play in meeting global food security and socio-political stability challenges, given their policies and institutional constraints. In particular, we discuss the impact of a series of policy initiatives triggered by increasing food prices in the most recent years as especially export restrictions on grains taken by Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan are found to have affected both the food-importing countries in the region as well as several countries in, for example, North Africa and the Middle East, which heavily rely on imports from these major grain-exporting countries.