ABSTRACT
A fitting tribute to Latvia's economic transformations is the rapidly changing nature of scholarly analysis on the state of the country. When the Popular Front first pushed for independence from the Soviet Union, many Western experts countenanced economic patience and restraint: independent Latvia should remain within a Russian ruble zone, for example. A few years later, the emigre political scientist Juris Dreifelds wrote of a Latvia “in transition” both politically and economically. At the end of the decade, however, the Finnish scholar Marja Nissinen confidently writes of Latvia's transition to a market economy, as if transition was an accomplished fact. Nissinen does not naively claim that Latvia is now on the same footing as a Western European economy, but instead argues that since the majority of state enterprises have been privatised (with the rest on their way), and since public opinion supports difficult economic reforms, and since almost every major political party supports the move towards a market economy, we can safely assume that Latvia will not return to the command economy of its Soviet past. Latvia is committed to the Western model of a market economy; this transition is complete. Much, however, remains to be done. The IMF approach to macro economic stabilisation must continue, yet the state needs to address a new range of problems that have developed with transition: continued corruption, dangerous inequities within society, and the future of entire sectors of the Latvian economy are among the most desperate problems. Latvia's economic performance through the 1990s has been impressive, but has also not lacked its calamities. Although Latvia has not yet pulled off an economic miracle, the standard of living of the vast majority of its citizens is demonstrably better than most former Soviet citizens can claim.
