While policy makers need to focus on achieving and sustaining basic macroeconomic stability in the transition of economies from a socialist to a market orientation, financial institutions and reforms play a particularly crucial role in this transformation. The essays in this collection offer overviews of issues in banking sector reform and capital markets as well as specific perspectives on the financial sectors in changing economies of Central and Eastern Europe, China, and Israel. Original versions of the essays were presented at the Second Dubrovnik Conference on Transition Economies organized by the National Bank of Croatia in June, 1996.