ABSTRACT
Starting in the nineteenth century, the Czech lands had been the most industrially developed part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. The market system continued to develop in independent Czechoslovakia from the break-up of the empire in 1918 until 1948 (except under German occupation during the Second World War). The per capita GNP of the Czech lands during the 1930s was close to the Belgian GNP, and greater than the Austrian GNP by some estimates.
