ABSTRACT
This chapter is about changes in the economic mechanisms of East European centrally planned economies. It covers the seven European member countries of the Council of Mutual Economic Aid, i.e., Eastern Europe, including the Soviet Union but excluding Yugoslavia. The economic system of each particular East European country includes the institutional forms and structures, operational rules and behavioral patterns of the entire economy, relative to all economic agents. The history of economic mechanisms can be presented as a long march, with periods of advance and retreat, constituting a gradual departure from the Stalinist starting point—from the system of highly centralized mandatory planning and movement toward a less centralized, less demonetized, less bureaucratic economy.
