It is often argued that secured property rights are established in response to grassroots demand of private owners. The paper analyzes preferences of private owners over the degree of protection of property rights. The framework for this analysis is an equilibrium model, which combines...

The paper analyses preferences of private owners over the degree of property rights protection. It is shown that inequality in resource ownership and/or relative inefficiency of production technologies could make wealthier agents favour less than full protection of property rights. If such...

In some transition countries, the number of small businesses continues to grow, and the most successful ones developed into larger firms. In others, including Russia, small and medium enterprise (SME) sectors, after a period of initial expansion, are stagnating or even declining, due to a lack...

Regional governments in Russia have undertaken various legal initiatives independently of the federal government and of each other. The paper will examine these different legal initiatives and explore the efficiency implications of legal reform at the subnational level. Three phenomena will be...