ABSTRACT
The question of ownership plays a key role in the transformation concepts of the transition countries in Central and Eastern Europe. This issue marks the crossing point from reform to transformation. While the reforms of the economic systems in Poland, Hungary and the Soviet Union during the seventies and the eighties included the abandonment of mandatory planning and the partial liberalization of prices,1
the institutionalization of a regime of private property rights and the privatization of the state economic sector was ruled out until the break down of the Berlin Wall.2
