ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the pressures and constraints of systemic changes in different types of socialist economies, in contrasting the economic developments in the Soviet Union, in Poland, Cuba, Yugoslavia, Hungary, and China. It also analyzes the institutional setting, economic policies, and performance of each economy during the first half of the 1980s and assesses the prospects for the years ahead. The chapter provides an overview of the growing diversity in contemporary socialist economies, showing that it is more difficult than ever to describe the economic structures and policies characterized as "socialist." In the 1960s, economic reforms in discussion since the mid 1950s were finally introduced in several Eastern European countries. The 1970s and the first half of the 1980s witnessed an overall emphasis on pragmatism in economic policy-making. The problem of conflicting economic and social goals does not only appear at the microeconomic level, it emerges in connection with policies at the macro-level as well.
