What Does the Eastern European Growth Experience Tell Us About the Policy and Convergence Debates? is an unpublished paper. While the human costs of communism in Eastern Europe were incalculably large, the impact on regional income growth may have been comparatively minor. Despite common perceptions of the efficacy of communism as a system for promoting growth, it appears that the region’s performance was better than any developing country group with the exception of the Asian miracle countries. The region would have grown faster if it had been part of a broader European ‘convergence club,’ however, and the paper discusses how much communism is to be blamed for Eastern Europe not being part of such a grouping –suggesting that this depends on the country. The paper concludes with a look at what these results might mean for the growth and convergence debates.