Accidental Occidental: Economics and
Culture of Transition in Mitteleuropa, the
Baltic and the Balkan Area

(Central European University Press, 2013)

Featuring the author

Lajos Bokros

Former Minister of Finance, Hungary

Member of European Parliament

Professor of Economics and Public Policy, Central European University

with comments by

Charles Gati

Professorial Lecturer in Russian and Eurasian Studies,

Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies

moderated by

Tom G. Palmer

Senior Fellow, Cato Institute

Executive Vice President for International Programs,

Atlas Economic Research Foundation 

The transition to market democracy in most of Central Europe can rightfully be considered a success story. The experience of post-socialist countries from the Baltics to the Balkans, however, has varied greatly. Lajos Bokros, who played a key role implementing market reforms in Hungary in the 1990s, will review lessons of the transition and the current vitality of capitalism and liberal democracy in a diversity of countries, including his own.