This comprehensive and detailed examination of the challenges faced by the newly independent state of Ukraine argues that its lackluster economic performance during the 1990s was the unfortunate result of a combination of the hasty adoption of public policies not clearly understood and a prolonged struggle to build governmental institutions. With a focus on both how the government used financial repression to balance budgets, dampen inflationary pressures and, at the same time, maintain formal and informal subsidies to state enterprises. It makes original contributions to the debate on economic reform by focusing attention on Ukraine's critical choices in the areas of state institution-building, fiscal policies and monetary reform, and the government's preference for financially-repressive policy measures.

Autorentext

ROBERT S. KRAVCHUK is Associate Professor of Public & Environmental Affairs at Indiana University. He is the author or editor of several recent books and journal articles about Ukrainian politics and economics. A frequent traveler to Ukraine, Kravchuk also served as a U.S. Treasury Department Resident Advisor to the Minister of Finance of Ukraine, and taught public finance and economics at the Ukrainian Academy of Public Administration from 1993-94.

Inhalt

Crisis, Change, and Reform in the Ukrainian Context Presidential Leadership in Economic Reform The Challenge of Fiscal Reform Tax Policy and Subnational Finances Financial Repression in the Ukrainian Economy From Hyperinflation to Stabilization, 1991-96 The Elections of 1994 as an Economic Event (with Victor Chudowsky) The Struggle to Develop the Executive Power Politics of Privatization Corruption, Regional Clans, and Predatory Capitalism Prognosis: The Economy in 1999-2001, and Beyond Appendices Index