[LINK] Southeast Europe's Divergence

[rfmcdonald]

Vladimir Gligorov's paper "Southeast Europe: History of Divergence", part of the Balkans and Europe: Trade, State, Money and Politics series, takes stock of the relative decline of southeastern European economies. Measured in terms of GDP per capita, the gap is vast: "The relation between Central Europe and the Balkans was around 2 to 1 at the beginning of the last century. It was much higher at the end of the century. There are of course many reasons for that. As most of this divergence has occurred in the last fifty years, there is no doubt that the two main causes were the long period of socialism and the mismanaged transition." More, there are growing divergences within the region of the former Yugoslavia, with Slovenia moving towards western European averages, Croatia following the same trend more intermittantly, and the remainder dropping behind catastrophically. The failure of Yugoslavia to manage the post-Communist transition successfully is responsible for immeasurable suffering.