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Many transition economies are former socialist planned economies and have undergone market reforms of their financial sector to signal their transition towards democracy. However, governments in these countries have been reluctant to relinquish the pre-existing controls on economy and have adopted nuanced and sophisticated approaches to retain control. In such context, scholars may find it challenging to investigate the role played by the state in the success or failure of attempted market reforms. This work investigates the different forms of state-induced accounting controls that may preserve the status quo within the economy during transition, using Myanmar as an example.

The authors adopted a longitudinal qualitative research method aiming to reveal the very processes and mechanisms used by the banks and their evolution over time. This method is in accordance with the historical institutionalist perspective that they have applied within this research.

The authors found that the Myanmar government embarked on the privatisation of their financial sector from 1990 to 2016 as a major public sector reform initiative. Under the guise of market reforms, it used both state-led and market-led controls to emulate and retain the socialist banking model where banks are used to fund the immediate government's budget deficits. This created a series of intended and unintended consequences, resulting in the ultimate failure of the government's market reforms.

Previously, research on public sector management accounting in emerging economies was not relying consistently on using theory. The relative limited theorisation led to gaps when attempting to understand and explain the opaque forms of state control mechanisms in transition economies. By applying historical institutionalist perspective, and a more theory-driven, reflective approach to the interpretation of the data collected, the authors have provided a deeper insight and understanding on how different forms of state controls can emerge, adapt and persist in transition economies such as Myanmar.

The authors demonstrated that though the state may have implemented market reforms to signal regimes change, this does not necessarily mean that the government has relinquished their control on the economy. The state could take a more sophisticated, covert approach towards state controls leading to both intended and unintended consequences. Thus, even if the state's preferences change, the decisions cannot be easily reversed, as path-dependent state controls may have become pervasive affecting any further institutional and policy developments. Thus, the authors suggest that governments in both transition and developed economies should be cautious when enacting regulations on corporate control.

In this paper, the authors have applied a historical institutional perspective in their analysis instead of the more widely used sociological, institutionalist approach. This allowed authors to harness rich longitudinal data indicating that market reforms and their success or failure should be examined as an ongoing process rather than a completed action. This is especially important in transition economies where the state may be unwilling to renounce the existing controls on the industry and may resort to more opaque forms of state control, eventually obstructing the intended reforms.

Under the circumstances of the accelerated technological advance and the overlapping of various global crises in the recent years, one of the main strategic priorities of the European Union in medium and long terms consists of building resilient regional and local communities which implies the aim to protect citizens against the impact of climate changes. Considering the essential role of the human capital in this endeavor, this chapter aims to investigate the relationship between human resources and economic development focusing a SWOT analysis in the case of Romania taking into account recent developments and trends of the European and global labor market related to various aspects induced by the green transition. The analysis of the structural demo-economic characteristics of Romania’s population revealed a decline of the total population, against the background of negative demographic and net migration, the increase in the average and median age of the total population, the rise in demographic and economic dependency ratios representing serious challenges for the development strategy on short, medium and long terms. To these, increasing quantitative and qualitative shortages in the labor market are added, which complicate the advancement of the green transition in Romania. In the conclusions of this chapter, strategic milestones on policies and measures in the short, medium and long terms at macroeconomic and labor market levels are proposed.

While the liberalization of economies within the transition paradigm is viewed to take place primarily on a macroeconomic (primary) level, this paper switches emphasis to the secondary and tertiary level of post-transition. While macroeconomic reforms may provide the playing field, secondary reforms level the playing field and tertiary reforms develop the capabilities necessary for firms and individuals within firms to compete in the landscape of liberalized economies. It is necessary to examine the transformations on three levels. First, the development of public policy and institutions aimed at regulating certain industries or firms. Second, the explicit market strategies of firms operating in the industries that shape market structure and inform public policy. Third, the nonmarket strategies of firms aimed at influencing the form and substance of public policy. Drawing on research in three related areas: institutional voids (IVs), the role of market and nonmarket strategies of firms, respectively, this paper examines the current state of transition in CEE/FSU countries. The main conclusions of the paper are first, transition and post-transition has been and continues to be profoundly impacted by the liberalizing influences of multinational firms. Second, this causation from the strategies and tactics of multinational firms to the extent of transition also helps to explain the degree of modernization of economies in a given transition economy. Third, it is important to distinguish between local and foreign firms on the transition process. Foreign firms are more likely to pursue liberalization agendas when it strengthens their competitive advantage over local firms. Conversely, local firms – especially those who rely on the capacity to navigate institutional voids – may be opposed to liberalization, as liberalization would threaten their sources of competitive advantage.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a retrospective analysis of the Russian criminal legislation in the field of protection of economic relations in the transitional period of the economy.

Based on historical, as well as general scientific research, methods (induction, deduction, analysis, synthesis and historical) and private scientific methods for studying criminal law phenomena (formal-logical, statistical and document research method), the author managed to identify a number of patterns in the development of the Russian criminal legislation in the context of the chosen economic model.

In particular, it is noted that during the period of the destruction of the planned economic model and the choice of ways for the development of the economy, as well as at the initial stage of the transition period of the economy in Russia.

The author singles out the following patterns of development of criminal legislation in Russia: a) under the influence of a sharp change in the economic model, risks in the sphere of protection of economic relations; and b) the tasks of criminal law in the field of protection of economic relations are changing significantly: from protecting the state monopoly in most areas of economic activity to protecting market economic relations.

Extensions/applications/revisions of the Marxian vision of socialism can broadly be categorized into two polar strands: the centralized and the decentralized strands of socialist economic systems. Explores the main postulates of a decentralized version of a socialist economic system as provided by Kautsky, Luxembourg, Bernstein, Bukharin and Lange. The centralized strand of socialist economic systems has been elaborated drawing mainly from the writings of Lenin, Trotsky, Dobb, Sweezy and Baran.

The theoretical contribution provided by the transitional theories has fundamentally helped develop a better understanding of the migration process, by showing how migration is interacting with other processes of development. They show that along with development, emigration is following an upside down ‘U’ shaped pattern, being overreached by immigration, while the region changes its migration profile from emigration to immigration. This was the case for the southern European states, which followed a rapid migration transition during the second half of the twentieth century. After large emigration to Western and Northern Europe, these managed to attract large immigration flows from the less developed countries in Africa and Latin America, but also from Eastern Europe after the fall of communist regimes. This chapter aims to test whether Eastern Europe is heading to the same migration transition pattern as the South and change their current status of net migration provider. Thus, the impact of the migration transition drivers in explaining net migration balance is analysed using a panel data for the 2000–2013 period. As a country can encompass both emigration and immigration regions, the current analysis is carried out at European Union (EU) regional level data (NUTS II), while controlling for the regional specifics and unobserved time effects. Overall, most of the factors which led to the migration shift, from emigration to immigration, in Southern Europe were proven to be fundamental at EU regional level as well. Migration flows were shown to be more sensitive to unemployment, urbanisation, segmentation of the labour market and active population share in the eastern as compared to the southern European regions. Nevertheless, accessing the transition drivers evolution during 2011–2013 period, eastern regions are still highly unattractive and their chances for becoming destination regions are currently at low levels.

The purpose of the paper is to develop alternative paths to the transition process as a result of alternative models of transition.

A political economy methodology to the transition process results in alternative transition models. As a result five alternative models of transition come into being.

Transition models can be distinguished on the basis of economic analysis, speed and the political structure. Each model recommended a set of economic policies to facilitate the transition process. The adoption of gradualist processes of transition – except in the case of shock therapy – requires a sequence by which the reforms should be introduced.

The paper contributes to the transition literature by developing a set of economic policies combined with a sequence path for each transition model.

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce emerging markets (EMs) and then European transition economies in which alliance transformation takes place. Considering the complexity of EMs, researchers and academics feel pressure in recent years to seek comprehensive understanding of the EM context (Kumar and Srivastava, 2019). Transition economies are a special category of EMs, which have attracted many multinational firms to invest after the fall of Berlin wall in the beginning of 1990s. This region constitutes of former soviet bloc, located in central and eastern Europe. After a short introduction and discussion on the importance on EMs, development process within EMs is taken up. Transition economies are then introduced, particularly in relation to their link with the European Union. Aims and research questions are outlined to display the objective and direction of the study. The next section discusses major contributions, followed by limitations of the study describing what issues are left out to concentrate on the research object. Finally, it is shortly described what other chapters are coming and what they deal with.

The transition countries have been pursuing a market economy since the early 1990s. Crucial reforms in the banking and financial sectors are necessary to provide a financial structure that supports a market economy, particularly the private and enterprise sector, leading to economic growth. This paper examines the banking and financial development in the transition countries. Arguments for banking reforms are made and the conditions for an efficient banking system are examined. A comparison in the progress of banking reforms and economic growth provides useful lessons not only for the transition countries but for developing and other emerging countries. Lastly, policy choices are suggested for the transition countries.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the conditions of entrepreneurship in transition and post-conflict societies, using Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) as a case study. There are many features of this country which make it an interesting case such. It was once a part of Yugoslavia and had a socialist regime. Post-socialism, B&H turned to creating and maintaining a market-based economy, making it a transition country. Lastly, the transition process has been disturbed and delayed due to the war that began in 1992.

The author chose a single case study research design to present a unique case and to give in-depth analysis. The author has used the method of data triangulation to increase reliability and credibility of the case study research.

The case study's findings reveal that three types of conditions influence entrepreneurship in B&H: socio-political, economic and legal. The paper has several implications; more specifically, inter alia, it has helped understand complexity of transitional environments and the implications of the same on entrepreneurship development.

The paper adds to the existing literature on factors affecting entrepreneurial activity within a post-conflict context by simplifying categorization into three broad categories. By doing so, the paper emphasizes particular areas obstructing the development of the enterprise sector in B&H.