Awakening the Market: Viet Nam's Economic Transition

摘要

The essay considers the basic issues facing transitional socialist economies,including price reforms, enterprise and financial sector reforms, and institutional changes relating to the role of government. Using Viet Nam as the case in point, it identifies the key constraints facing governments seeking to move rapidly to the market system. The objectives of the paper are to: (1) inform a broad readership about the bold economic reform program being undertaken without international assistance in Viet Nam; (2) to identify for the authorities key bottlenecks and future issues to be addressed; (3) to contrast where possible the experiment vis-a-vis reform programs in other countries; and (4) to begin the process of generalizing lessons from these cases so as to better understand the transformation process itself.