Leading social scientists, empirical analysts, and policy practitioners demonstrate the various ways in which the insights of János Kornai, a renowned early analyst and critic of the command economies of Eastern European communist states, are stirring academic and policy discussions about current challenges. While dissecting the economic theories and practices in the Soviet Bloc, Kornai devised and applied concepts such as soft-budget constraints, rush versus harmonic growth, surplus versus shortage economy, non-Walrasian equilibrium, bureaucratic coordination, and the invisible power of the communist party. These concepts are commonly applied to a variety of issues in the contexts of fundamental transformation. The cases discussed in this volume include the transitional paths of post-communist economies, the pitfalls of East European market-building, economic repercussions of the dissolution of Yugoslavia, and the process of integration in the Eurozone.

In conclusion János Kornai’s thoughts on a variety of research topics as well as the value of democracy are included as he delivered at the conference celebrating his 90th birthday in 2018.

Miklós Rosta received his PhD in Economics in 2012. Currently, he is the head of the Department of Comparative and Institutional Economics and Director of the Center of Central Asia Research at Corvinus University of Budapest. His main research interests include issues connected to institutional economics and public management studies. He serves as editor of the Hungarian Economic Review (Közgazdasági Szemle).

Dora Piroska has been a Lecturer at the Department of Government at the University of Texas at Austin, an Associate Professor at the Corvinus University of Budapest and currently a Visiting Professor at the Central European University, Budapest. She is a political economist with a special interest in the Central and Eastern European region. 

Engaging with János Kornai’s Scholarship: Systems, Institutions, and Values
Dóra Piroska and Miklós Rosta

János Kornai’s Theory of Socialism
Iván Szelényi

Thinking Capitalism with János Kornai
Gerard Roland

The Theories of János Kornai and a Less-known Hungarian Economist, Ferenc Jánossy, on Unbalanced Economic Growth
Péter Mihályi

Mistaking Markets: Seeing Markets Where They Do Not Exist
Geoffrey M. Hodgson

The System Paradigm and the European Monetary Union: What János Kornai’s Contribution to Comparative Economics Can Suggest to the Eurozone
Bruno Dallago

Independent Fiscal Institutions: “New Kids on the Block” in Economic Policy
László Jankovics

Modified Management Thinking in Health Care: The Impacts of Centralization and the Soft Budget Constraint
Éva Krenyácz

Resource Reallocation and Ambiguous Economic Performance in a Captured State: The Case of Hungary
József Péter Martin

About the Value of Democracy and Other Challenging Research Topics: Closing Remarks at the Conference on February 22, 2018
János Kornai

Notes on the Contributors
Index