Sustaining the Transition

The Social Safety Net in Postcommunist Europe

Book by Michael Mandelbaum, Editor and Ethan B. Kapstein, Editor

January 1, 1997

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Book: Foreign policy analyses written by CFR fellows and published by the trade presses, academic presses, or the Council on Foreign Relations Press.

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In the transition of the postcommunist countries from central planning to market economies, the role of the social safety net has become increasingly important and controversial. The dislocations caused by the transition-in particular unemployment and poverty-have increased the demand for social support. But the level of benefits set in the communist era is, in most of these countries, too high to be sustained without inflicting serious damage on their economies.

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