This paper endeavours to capture certain aspects of the ‘Austro-Hungarian convergence’. It focuses on the genesis and evolution of Janos Kornai’s economic thought and its rapprochement to the Austrian economists (particularly von Mises and Hayek) with regard to the relationships between property and coordination mechanism. Ruminating on Kornai’s writings through a periodisation of the reformist economic thought in the Eastern countries, the author also draws upon P. Sutela’s classification of economic reforms in order to substantiate the relation of economic thought and economic reforms.