Economic transition is being challenged in Eastern Europe from two fronts. First, by history: the capitalist transformation in the region was not completed when it was replaced by the socialist economic system. Therefore we need to analyze it in a context of a continuous process of transformation lasting for centuries. Secondly, it is challenged by society: social consensus on adapting new economic rationalism such as free competition is emerging very slowly. Instead, increasing political intervention in the economic processes is expected. Based on the Hungarian case, the article emphasizes these aspects and points out that EU policies are also inconsistent in the internal and external disciplines they impose, such as the Schengen treaty against the free movement of persons and the agrarian policy against the free movement of goods.

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After the long and the intensive political debates, the Hungarian government launched so-called 'the three-pillar pension system' in 1998. One of the key elements of the 1998 reform was to create the Mandatory Private Pension Funds (MPFs) as the second pillar of the new system. The aim of this paper is to examine the institutional framework and performance of MPFs, taking into consideration the fact that the decision making process before 1998 and the following political maneuvers had a great impact on management activities and economic efficiencies of the pension funds. As a conclusion of the paper, we maintain that in order to mitigate negative influence from political strife and maximize the interests of the fund members, certain governance reforms and reinforcement of the monitoring system against MPFs should be enacted for successful transformation of the Hungarian pension system.

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This article analyses regional aspects of the Russian depopulation that started in 1992 and has accelerated since 1999. The decrease in population from 1992 was mainly due to natural decreases, especially in the central regions, and negative net migration, especially in the far eastern and northern regions. Since 1999 natural depopulation has accelerated in the central, Volga and north-west regions. There are two factors that contributed to the depopulation in Russia: an increase in early deaths of males observed, especially in the central and north-west regions and in large cities, and an overall decrease in birth rates.

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This paper compares the frameworks and the present situations of the Home Appliance Recycling Law in Japan, and two Directives on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment and the Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances applied in the European Union. A simple general equilibrium model is developed where the policy-maker aims to internalize the external diseconomy due to illegal disposal. Focusing on the difference in the charge systems each consumer faces, an important result will be derived which implies that an advanced payment used in some European countries is not necessarily superior to the deferred one enacted in Japan.

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While industrial waste is basically disposed of by the private sector in Japan, it is disposed of by the public sector in Germany. However, lately, there is a movement toward a combination of these two systems in both countries. In this paper, first, I analyze and compare these two disposal systems. Then, I consider how these systems should be combined. It is shown that waste should be classified by the degree of externality and that the two systems should be combined according to this classification.

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In this paper we analyze the regional disparities in Mongolia and their problems in the first ten years of Mongolian transition to a market economy. The social economic circumstances in rural areas deteriorated and as a result the population movement from rural areas to urban areas rapidly increased. Under these circumstances the disparity among regions expanded, and this situation has negatively affected Ulaanbaatar city. Until now the livestock sector has been one of the most important elements of the national economy; therefore, improvement of social economic conditions in rural areas is one of the urgent issues to be solved.

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