Evaluation of LPI Values of Transition Economies Countries With a Grey MCDM Model

Introduction

Since the end of the 20th century in the world; important changes have started to take place in terms of economy, politics, culture and geographical borders. The most important of these is the fall of the Berlin Wall at the end of 1989 and the unification of East Germany and West Germany. After this event, at the end of 1991, the Soviet Union was completely disintegrated, and in 1993 and after, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia were disintegrated. While these events took place on the world agenda, they initiated a process that would lead to permanent changes in the world economy and politics. In the context of the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and new developments, countries that have started the transition to a market economy have a large geographical area and population. Especially after the 1990s, the changes were not limited to the geography of the Soviet Union. The Central and Eastern European countries, which had to adopt the socialist system after World War II and took the central planning economic system as a role model, started to make radical changes in the social and economic field. It has become possible to examine the countries entering the transition economies as qualifying as transition to the market economy or transformation countries.

Transition economies are studied in different groups because their countries are located in different regions and geographies. Transition economy countries can be listed as follows; EU countries (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia), Southeast Europe Countries (Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, Macedonia, Serbia), Community of Independent States (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan), East Asia Countries (Cambodia, China, Lao P.D.R., Mongolia, Vietnam) (IMF, 2000; Bulut, 2019).