Ivan Ribnikar

The financial system of a small, emerging market economy

Abstract A small, emerging market economy like Slovenia has, and will continue to have in the near future, imprints of its economic history on the behavior of its citizens and its institutions. Therefore, Slovenia should not live with the illusion it has of business enterprises and their owners operating in the same way as in a true market economy. If Slovenias objective is to become a true market economy in the future, then it must temporarily resort to an “alternative” type of finance, because that is what the current “alternative” environment requires.

From Monetary Integration via Monetary Independence to a New Integration? (The Case Of Slovenia)

Whether a transition economy such as that of Slovenia, which a few years ago left a kind of monetary integration, should prepare itself for joining the European single currency area — another monetary integration — is for the moment, as will be seen, not the right question. In the first place, the country must put its house in order, not only because it was previously a (market-planned) variety of a non-market economy, but also because it decided, under the influence of foreign experts, to abolish social ownership of business enterprises in the wrong way (Ribnikar, 1991). Since it will take quite some time before its house is brought into order, the question of formally or de iure entering the single currency area will not arise in the imminent future.