In this 1988 book, Iliana Zloch-Christy analyzes the causes and consequences of the massive Eastern European debt to the West accumulated in the 1970s. In assessing the region's convertible-currency debt problem, the author addresses five main issues: the origins of the debt; the possibility that such a debt was essential to Eastern Europe's economic development; the effects of the countries' own adjustments to the problem; Western policies toward resolving the Eastern European debt difficulties; and the outlook for the debt during the rest of the 1980s. This book evaluates the flaws of the centrally planned economies that led to the crisis, as well as the countries' lack of effective structural adjustment. The author also covers the roles of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and looks at the potential debt consequences of resurging East-West trade.