The two distinct systems of socialist Albania and SFR Yugoslavia : A comparative analysis using Kornai's Main Line of Causality

This paper compares two peculiar country cases within the former European socialist bloc: Albania and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Based on János Kornai's 'main line of causality', we compare the two countries' main char-acteristics from the end of the Second World War until the fall of their socialist re-gimes. The goal of the paper is to demonstrate that the two neighbouring countries had similar political and economic intentions following the Second World War; yet despite this fact the analysed countries' development paths gradually diverged. As a result, the two systems differed fundamentally by the 1970s. Analysing the time-period in question is crucial to understand Albania's and the successor Yugoslav states' subsequent economic development. [Publisher's text]