New structures, instead of evolving from political and social experience, are being acquired 'off the shelf', with little reference to national history, prejudices or politics. The policy debate over the past six years has been dominated by disagreement over the relative merits of 'shock therapy' to secure macroeconomic stability, and 'gradualism', in which the shock is moderated and the process of dismantling proceeds more slowly. That particular debate is now piece of transition pre-history. The vital question is what to do next. An important theme of the Report is the restoration of public responsibility by the construction of an efficient state, capable of using the dynamism of the market to secure transformation.
Economic policy requires an effective framework of public institutions and public administration.
It is only at the end that the Report turns to problems of macroeconomics. Relegating macroeconomic policy to the final chapter may appear wilful, even perverse, given the central role which macroeconomic issues have played in the debates over 'shock therapy' and 'gradualism'. But macroeconomic stability is a pre-condition, not of reform or transformation, but of their orderly, efficient, inexpensive implementation. This is the key tothe ordering of the argument in this Report. The institutional and microeconomic reforms which are examined in the earlier chapters of the Report, are necessary for the transformation process an are also the means of easing the passage to macroeconomic stability.