Hungary
Two things are worth reading Hungary for: Kornai's analysis of how planned economies actually behave, which is a permanent contribution, and the post-2010 literature on state capture of business.
8 books
Start here
- Orbán: Europe's New StrongmanPaul Lendvai, 2017
- Post-Communist Mafia StateBálint Magyar, 2016
- The Socialist System: The Political Economy of CommunismJános Kornai, 1992
Books 8
János Kornai · 1992 · The definitive anatomy of the command economy, by the Hungarian economist who named its pathologies.
János Kornai · 1979 · The soft budget constraint: why state firms never run out of money and never allocate well.
Gil Eyal, Iván Szelényi, Eleanor Townsley · 1998 · Who acquired Hungarian assets when the country had no domestic capital.
János Kornai · 2006 · Memoir by the economist who advised the reforms from inside the system.
János Kornai · 2008 · Kornai's own summary of what the transition did and cost.
Bálint Magyar · 2016 · A framework for how ownership is reassigned politically; the most useful guide to Hungarian counterparty risk.
Paul Lendvai · 2017 · How the post-2010 government allocates contracts, media and banking licences.
Bálint Magyar · 2019 · Comparative framework for post-communist regimes built on the Hungarian case.