JÁNOS KORNAI is Permanent Fellow, Emeritus, at Collegium Budapest Institute for Advanced Study, Hungary, and Allie S. Freed Professor of Economics Emeritus at Harvard University, USA. He is the author of many other books, including The Economics of Shortage (1980) and The Socialist System (1992).

YINGYI QIAN is Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, USA, and the School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, China.

One of the most important legacies of the twentieth century is the rise and fall of the socialist economic system. While countries in Central and Eastern Europe have abandoned socialism and embraced market and democracy, two Asian countries - China and Vietnam - appeared to have followed a different path, and both economies are growing fast. Yet, although both China and Vietnam are making a decisive transition to the market economy, they have also insisted on the official ideology of socialism. The reform experiences of these two countries have raised important intellectual questions: are China and Vietnam practicing market socialism? How has the market emerged under the ideology of socialism? What is the meaning of the market in this context? This book brings together a wide range of experts to address these questions by studying some of the fundamental issues surrounding the relationship between the market, property rights, and socialism. With fresh insights into these important and topical issues, this book contributes to an understanding of how the market and socialist ideology coexist in China and Vietnam, while also drawing important conclusions which have implications beyond these regions.