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CMEA: effective but cumbersome political economy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Michael Marrese
Michael Marrese
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Economics at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.
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Abstract

The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance is primarily a forum for bilateral bargaining between the Soviet Union and each of the other CMEA countries. The bilateral negotiations are conducted with tremendous concern for Soviet long-term preferences and for the short-term economic-political stability of East European countries. The CMEA provides the Soviet Union with an effective but cumbersome politico-economic policy-making apparatus that is becoming less effective and increasingly cumbersome over time. From the East European perspective, the CMEA tends to solidify the positions of the East European leaders yet generate long-term economic costs. What are the preferences upon which the CMEA is constructed? How are CMEA characteristics related to these preferences? What are the economic costs and benefits to member countries in static and dynamic terms? Why have costs for all member countries risen over time? How is intra-CMEA trade likely to change during the next decade?

Type
2. Eastern Europe as a Region
Information
International Organization , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , Spring 1986 , pp. 287 - 327
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1986

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References

1. Principally because of the Soviet Union's desire to promote economic and political integration among the socialist planned economies of Eastern Europe, the CMEA was established in January 1949 with the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Romania as its original members. East Germany (the GDR) joined in 1950, Mongolia in 1962, and Vietnam in 1978. The CMEA was not a serious policy-making arena until the latter part of the 1950s. In this essay, “CMEA” refers to the seven European members—the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the GDR, Hungary, Poland, and Romania.

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4. See Marrese, Michael and Vaňous, Jan, Soviet Subsidization of Trade with Eastern Europe— A Soviet Perspective (Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, University of California, 1983), pp. 68–86Google Scholar; Marrese, and Vaňous, , “Soviet Trade Relations with Eastern Europe, 1970–84” (Revised version of the paper presented to the Conference on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the World Economy, Washington, D.C., 18–19 10 1984), pp. 24–37Google Scholar.

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7. Ibid., p. 143.

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14. Remarks concerning production specialization summarize Pecsi, , The Future, pp. 10–16, 37–39Google Scholar. He also provides supporting quantitative evidence.

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26. Vaňous, and Marrese, , Soviet-East European Trade Relations, p. 91Google Scholar.

27. The basis for the analysis of the CMEA Summit is Vaňous, and Marrese, , Soviet-East European Trade Relations, pp. 87–98Google Scholar.

28. “Statement on the Main Directions of Further Developing and Deepening the Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation of the CMEA Member-Countries,” CMEA communique, June 1985, p. 3.

29. Marrese, and Vaňous, , Soviet Subsidization, p. 5Google Scholar.

30. For evidence of this see Marrese, and Vaňous, , Soviet Subsidization, pp. 77–80Google Scholar.

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32. For details concerning each of these six points, see Marrese, and Vaňous, , “Soviet Trade Relations,” pp. 38–40Google Scholar.

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40. Ibid., p. 24.

41. CMEA communiqué, June 1985, p. 1.

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44. For more details, see Marrese, and Vaňous, , “Soviet Trade Relations,” pp. 2–12Google Scholar.

45. The total dollar ranking focuses on the nonmarket benefits received and neglects considerations of East European domestic stability. The per capita ranking is a rough means of including some consideration of domestic stability.

46. Vaňous, and Marrese, , Soviet-East European Trade Relations, pp. 162, 206Google Scholar.

47. Marrese, and Vaňous, , “Soviet Trade Relations,” pp. 3–9Google Scholar.

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49. Vaňous, and Marrese, , Soviet-East European Trade Relations, pp. 166–80Google Scholar.

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