Reflections on Transition: Twenty Years After The Fall of The Berlin Wall

Contact person
Lorraine Telfer-Taivainen, Senior Editorial and Publishing Assistant

• Opening statement by President Václav Havel
  Reflections on Transition: Twenty Years After the Fall of the Berlin Wall September 2009 WIDER Conference
• Photo gallery of the event

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin wall poster.pdf

The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 was a defining moment in the transition of former socialist countries into market economies. To mark the twentieth anniversary of this historic event, UNU-WIDER is organising a two-day conference to review the experiences of transition countries during the past two decades and to draw out possible lessons for the future. Research topics likely to be covered (amongst others) include:

• understanding institutional change over the last 20 years
• geopolitical evolutions and their economic implications
• evolution of macroeconomic debt and financial development
• results of privatization of enterprises and housing
• evolution of health and education systems
• income security and social insurance
• living standards, inequality, happiness
• nostalgia for the past
• ethnic conflict
• corruption