Abstract
Badly defined institutional framework caused many problems of the Czech transition. Designers of the economic reform did not respect the importance of precisely functioning market institutions.
No doubts that building institutions supports the functioning of markets. The article analyses why Czech economists and politicians did not understand the problem in the beginning and how they attempted to correct this initial mistake.
The Czech (Slovak) economy was in a worse situation if compared with other central European countries because any private sector did not exist there before 1990. Both formal and informal institutions were built here in the green field.
After politically sensitive problems with financial crime the building of institutions was accelerated in late 1990s. The process of re-building Czech market institutions continues within EU now.