Bulgarian Economic Thought since 1989:

Abstract

The profundity and timing of the collapse of the socialist economies took the economists on both sides of the Iron Curtain by surprise There were no theories that could explain or analyze the nature of such systemic social events and processes The soviet-style Marxist political economy neoclassical theory and Keynesian interpretations were unable to anticipate explain or offer solutions to the real problems This paper explores the intellectual reactions of the Bulgarian economic community to the collapse of the planned economy and to the practical and theoretical challenges of the post-communist period The following are the three primary objectives of this study: First is a methodological objective i e for explaining the dissemination of economic knowledge determining its channels as well as explaining the basic transmission mechanisms of economic theory in Bulgaria after the disintegration of the socialist bloc Second is a purely informational objective i e to present the major topics and issues studied during the period 1989-2009 and the findings of the economists working on them Finally the third objective and parallel task is to theoretically interpret the development characteristics and specificities of the Bulgarian economic thought during that period The main conclusion of this study is that although a few interesting studies regarding the Bulgarian economic science have been published they fail to offer independent and original ideas The Bulgarian economic perspectives closely follow the trends of western economic science which itself is currently at crossroads and is encountering numerous challenges JEL classifications numbers: B 20 B 41 P 50 I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Kiichiro Yagi Zoya Mladenova Stephan Kolev Roumen Andreev Nikola Kobarsky and Giovanni Pavanelli for their discussions and helpful suggestions This paper was prepared during my stay in ICER the summer-autumn of 2009 I would especially like to mention Michalis Psalidopoulos thoughtful and instructive letter wherein he emphasized the harmful and self-defeating effects of my claim regarding a lack of originality of the studies conducted by Bulgarian scholars and the relativity regarding which studies genuinely constitute economic theory and those that do not Although this made me reconsider a number of my judgments I decided to retain my primary conclusions because they were arrived at on the basis of my impressions of the Bulgarian economy and its scholars when I had written the article summer 2009