This title was first published in 2000:  A comparative analysis of market transformation in Poland, Belarus and the Baltic states with particular emphasis on cross-national variations in speed and direction of post-Communist economic reforms. While many studies tend to concentrate on the economic aspects of market reforms, analysis of the broader institutional framework is less common. This book, therefore, focuses on the influence of historical and cultural conditions on the formation of economic policy. The findings presented indicate that, far from being a purely rational process driven exclusively by considerations of economical efficiency, post-Communist market transformation is influenced by socio-political and cultural factors which are able to account for cross-national variations in speed and direction of reforms.