Price-wage dynamics and inflation in socialist economies

This article analyzes the determinants of open inflation in transitional socialist economies, with reference to recent experience in Hungary and Poland. A simple inflation model is centered on the transmission process and on the short-run dynamics of inflation. Further incorporating a number of features specific to socialist economies and working with quarterly data, dynamic price and wage equations are estimated. The estimated equations allow satisfactory exploration of the role and weight of foreign prices and domestic factors in propagating inflation. Foreign prices matter, but developments on the cost side are critical in relating exogenous, policy-driven adjustments to the price level to increases in the rate of inflation. The absence of conventional market-based, equilibrating mechanisms requires that nominal anchors, particularly wage restraints, feature prominently in any stabilization program adopted by reforming socialist economies. © 1992 The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/THE WORLD BANK.