Transition Economies after 2008 Responses to the crisis in Russia and Eastern Europe

The economic crisis of 2008, starting from the US banking crisis, affected economic and political development in varied ways around the world. This edited volume examines the impact of the crisis on Eastern Europe and Russia, and the resulting policy responses. Taken as a whole, the economies of the former state socialist countries – frequently still referred to as transition economies – were hit hard by the crisis, suffering falls in GDP in 2009 that were deeper than the average around the world. However, there was considerable variety in the effects on individual countries, whilst some continuing to grow, others suffered quite exceptional falls in output. Policy responses were also quite diverse and do not obviously fit with the nature and severity of economic factors. The more general impacts on political life were also varied. In many cases very much the same governments continued in power, while in others there were significant changes and signs of a growing instability in party and political structures. The articles in this book explore these differences between countries and set them in a wider international context. This book was published as a special issue of Europe-Asia Studies.

1. Introduction: Transition Economies after the Crisis of 2008: Actors and Policies Policy Paradigms and Forms of Development in and after the Crisis 2. The Political Economy of Crisis Management in East – Central European Countries 3. Avoiding the Economic Crisis: Pragmatic Liberalism and Divisions over Economic Policy in Poland 4. The Baltic Republics and the Crisis of 2008 – 2011 5. Russia’s Response to Crisis: The Paradox of Success 6. Belarus’ Anti-Crisis Management: Success Story of Delayed Recession? Continuity and change in the enterprise sector 7. Crisis and Upgrading: The Case of the Hungarian Automotive and Electronics Sectors 8. Actions and Reactions of Russian Manufacturing Companies to the Crisis Shocks from 2008 – 2009: Evidence from the Empirical Survey Banks – the Role of Ownership and Regulation 9. Central and East European Bank Responses to the Financial ‘Crisis’: Do Domestic Banks Perform Better in a Crisis than their Foreign-Owned Counterparts? 10. The Return of Political Risk: Foreign-Owned Banks in Emerging Europe

Martin Myant is Head of Unit European Economic, Employment and Social Policy and at the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) in Brussels, Belgium. Jan Drahokoupil is a Senior Researcher at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES), University of Mannheim, Germany, and at the ETUI in Brussels, Belgium.