ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on post-1989 technological change in Hungarian industry. It aims to detect the impact of liberalisation and privatisation on the industrial technological capacity of a formerly centrally planned economy, with Hungary as a case-study, and focusing on three regions, namely Gyor-Moson-Sopron in the West, Borsod-Abauj-Zemplen in the East and Budapest, the capital, in the centre of the country. It presents the process of transition and of the regional economic development of Hungary, rehearsing some of the issues raised earlier in the volume by Gyula Horvath. Qualification and organisation are among the 'soft' aspects of technology and are related to changes in products and production techniques. The background to the regional disparities can be found in the economic history of Hungary and principally through its industrialisation policies. In Hungary, the change of regulation systems from planned and indirect supply and demand managed, through trade companies, to market-based and direct supply is an institutional change of great importance for companies.
