Customer Reviews

Poland's Jump to the Market Economy (Lionel Robbins Lectures)

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This is one of the best economic books I have ever read. Filled with concise arguments and figures, Sachs makes his case for the liberalization of the Polish economy. Never boring and a very good read, this book is an inside depth into Poland's free market reforms.

Filled with simple tables of statistics from before and after transition policies, this book is straightforward, very readable, very enjoyable and useful. Its is pretty short, but covers all the basics for an overview of the process and transformation during what what a very successful and very fast transition. Sachs is modest and cautious in his evaluation of progress-- and yet he had reason to be proud.

Contrast this with "Privatizing Russia" wherein the authors boast about the obvious success of their theories and policy proposals and yet leave the country rife with corruption. This book also covers the theories of privatization and transition a lot less, but instead presents the case of Poland, which can be used as an example. Sometimes one real successful case study is more useful than a lot of high sounding theory.

One important takeaway though, is that Poland had it easy in that it was a small socialized country in the midst of a pretty well functioning European marketplace. As soon as it opened its economy to international trade and foreign investment, competition was introduced to all the firms-- even as they were still nationalized. The benefits of the market were immediate in competition, inputs, prices, etc. Russia had to do without this immense benefit.