Title: Slovakia's Transition to a Market Economy and the World Bank's Engagement
Abstract:This chapter presents an overall picture of the Slovakia’s transition to a market economy during 1990s and 2000s and of the World Bank role in that transition. The chapter is divided into three sectio...This chapter presents an overall picture of the Slovakia’s transition to a market economy during 1990s and 2000s and of the World Bank role in that transition. The chapter is divided into three sections. The first one presents the Slovak developments from a historical perspective, starting in 1990 and continuing until 2008. For each of the five periods presented, it tries to present both the macroeconomic context as well as the main policy developments with regard to the economy. The second section looks in detail at three special topics in the Slovakia’s transition that are worth attention as they are of sufficient importance for understanding the country’s development and they demonstrate idiosyncrasies, successes and failures of the Slovak experience. The topics are: growth, size of the state and equity; labor market outcomes; and industrial policy, privatization and FDI. They are presented in a comparative perspective, with regard to the other three Central European countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. In the last section, the chapter examines the World Bank engagement.Read More