Péter Ákos Bod

Péter Ákos Bod

PÉTER ÁKOS BOD (Szigetvár, 1951) economist, university professor. He worked in economic research at the Institute of Planning, Budapest, taught economics in Budapest and in the US before 1989. He was Minister of Industry and Trade between 1990 and 1991, and Governor of the Hungarian National Bank between 1991 and 1994. In 1995–1998, he was member of the Board at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (London), representing East Central European countries. At present, he is director of the Institute of Economics at Corvinus University of Budapest. He is vice chairman of the Hungarian Economic Society, sits on editorial boards of Hungarian journals (incl. this Review). His major publications include A vállalkozó állam (Entrepreneurial State) 1987; A pénz világa (The World of Money) 2001; Gazdaságpolitika (Economic Policy) 2002; Közgazdaságtan (Economics) 2006.

CLOSING THE GAP? THE WESTERN COMMUNITY AND HUNGARY

This is an edited version of the speech presented on 21 April 2016 at Corvinus University as part of the conference organised by Ottó Hieronymi of Webster University, Geneva, and Péter Ákos Bod of Corvinus University, Budapest, under the title “Hungary, Central Eastern Europe and the Future of the Western

THE PARALLEL WORLDS OF CITIZENS

Nowadays it has become exceedingly difficult to interpret and predict global processes. A recent case in point is the Brexit referendum, which produced an entirely unexpected outcome despite having been studied by a host of political analysts in advance. Likewise, the expert consensus was proven wrong by the end result

A WORLD OF PERIPHERIES

Greece’s predicament gave new meaning to the phrase “peripheral Eurozone” – concluded the analysis of Fitch, a leading rating agency. The Greek financial case is certainly extreme in its complexities but there have been other Eurozone members – the Irish, the Portuguese and the Spanish – experiencing dramatic economic events

A REVIVAL OF EUROPEAN ECONOMIC SCIENCE

If you are an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology or at the University of Chicago, you stand a small but not negligible chance of receiving the Nobel Prize for economics – officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, awarded for outstanding

UNDER WESTERN EYES – PERCEPTIONS OF THE HUNGARIAN ECONOMY

The performance of a national economy can be explained by a variety of “hard” production factors such as the size and quality of the labour force and the amount of capital. Adam Smith regarded land and other natural resources as a third factor of production but their significance has greatly

WHY THERE WAS NO MARSHALL AID AFTER 1990

The new EU member states of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have been massive beneficiaries of financial arrangements since their accession to the European Union (EU). Net official inflows amount up to two or three per cent of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – comparable in relative size to those

WHITER HUNGARIAN MITTELSTAND?

For a centre-right party, for any political party really, to win a democratic election by a two-thirds majority is rare enough (as in 2010). To repeat the experience is unprecedented. One can well imagine the Fidesz-haters – and their number is legion – muttering into their bowls of gruel about

TRANSITION: WHENCE AND WHERE TO? – UKRAINE AND ELSEWHERE

It is hard to find one single word to describe all that happened in the eastern part of Europe twenty-five years ago when the communist regimes collapsed. Economists and political scientists tend to use the term reform for the profound changes of that time. But this term lacks clear contours.