Introduction

Economic growth and economic sophistication are determined by a set of complex interactions, of which education is important part. Skill formation is slowly capturing more of the attention of political economists and is a building block of this research and, in essence, of the varieties of capitalism approach. Some of the contradictory approaches to the Central and Eastern Europe political economies identify the initial types of coordinated market economy and liberal market economy proposed by Hall and Soskice, while others suggest new ones founded on diverse considerations. The dependent market economy model proposed in this research is understood in a Weberian sense: it is an ideal model that simplifies complex socio-economic reality. This chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book. The book explains the deterioration of higher education in Romania in the context of its post-1989 political economic development.