Poland: Stabilization, Transition, and Reform, 1990–91

Abstract

The IMF played a critical role in supporting countries making the transition from central planning to the market economy in the 1990s. The main task was to help these countries restore and maintain macroeconomic and external stability while undergoing a radical reshaping of their economic institutions. The countries’ desire to change stemmed from the clear failure of the Communist system to deliver a satisfactory living standard for their citizens, especially when compared with the market economies of Western Europe. These failures both compounded the difficulties of transition and steeled the determination to face up to them.

The first two authors were economists on the team that worked with the Polish authorities on their 1990–91 stabilization and reform program; the third author was then Director of the Kuropean Department.

Mr. Balcerowicz served as deputy prime minister and finance minister of Poland from 1989 to 1991 and then again from 1997 to 1999. He is best known as the author of the so-called Baicerowicz Plan, whiCh achieved the rapid transform ation of Poland from a centrally planned to a market economy. In 2008 he was appointed chairman of Bruegel, a European think tank based in Brussels.