ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the growth performance of the Central, East and South-East Europe (CESEE) countries based on the best available quantitative evidence on national income and its composition by sector. It presents an overview of aggregate growth trends based on gross domestic product per capital levels. The chapter focuses on the two factors that, according to the broader literature on post-war growth, were fundamental to the productivity surge of the golden age: structural modernization and capital accumulation. The 1950s and 1960s were the golden age of economic growth not only for Western industrialised nations but also for centrally planned economies in Eastern Europe. Capital accumulation is central to modern economic growth and played an instrumental role in the growth of European economies after 1945. CESEE countries attained unprecedented rates of economic growth during the post-war era, demonstrating common general patterns of development.
