The Newsletter about Reforming Economies

Trade Performance Depends on Bold Reform. The comparative study of What's inside ... he radical transformations of the fifteen countries of the former Soviet Union (FSU), along with those of the transition economies of Eastern Europe, are producing demographic trends never before seen in developed countries. These include declining birth rates in all fifteen countries, plunging some of them to among the lowest levels in the world and the lowest levels ever measured for populations of these sizes. Death rates have risen in all 15 countries, causing declines in life expectancy, a reversal of the trend found in most countries of the world, developed or developing. Also, the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. set off a great stream of migration. When the fifteen states became sovereign countries, there were 43 million persons who found themselves living outside the country of their titular nationality.