This volume aims to provide a comprehensive description of one country's experience of public finance reform in a former socialist economy. Its ambition is to make the economic, social, and institutional dimensions of this complex process intelligible, rather than to bring new theoretical insights on public finance in transition economies. The book focuses on Hungary, an early reformer that underwent a profound -- and still unfinished -- process of transformation. Part I of this volume discusses the macroeconomic dimensions of the process Part II looks at the reforms from a historical and comparative perspective. Subsequent chapters analyze the reforms that took place in social expenditure programs (Part III). In public sector management and institutions (Part IV), and in the tax system (Part IV). The authors believe that there are many lessons to be learned from Hungarian history to the extent that what this book describes is a typical process of reforms in the structure, organization, and methods of financing of the public sector in a former socialist economy.