Description:This book examines, theoretically and empirically, the key aspects and differences of economic growth as well as the main structural features of development in transition countries, from the 1989 fall of the Berlin wall to the 2008-09 global financial crisis and recession. Topics include institutional change and governance, human capital and social capital, models of growth and employment – productivity relationship, sectoral/regional structure and trade integration, income distribution/inequality and many features of labour markets performance. Most of the chapters refer to the European transition countries; in some cases a comparative perspective - Eastern versus Western EU countries – is adopted. This book is useful reading for researchers, scholars and students in the fields of economics of transition, economic growth, development economics, European economic integration, regional economics and labour economics.