In pursuit of its transition from a command to a market economy, post-Soviet Russia has witnessed enormous regional differences in economic growth rates. Moreover, the economic reforms implemented under this transition, while initiated at the federal level, have also differed markedly across...

During the ongoing post-communist economic transitions, the relative well-being of many people is changing rapidly, and governments are not well positioned to accurately measure individual living standards. Under such circumstances, continued price controls over basic consumer goods within the...

This note argues that the most commonly used estimates of the size of the unofficial economies in the former Soviet republics are flawed. Most important, they are based on calculations that disregard the variation in unofficial economic activity across space in the pre-transition Soviet Union....

We investigate the relationship between oil windfalls and income inequality using the subnational data of one of the resource-richest and most unequal countries in the world – Russia. While previous literature produced contradictory findings due to the use of an aggregate measure of oil rents...

We analyze the implications of decentralization for the incentives of local governments to provide productivity enhancing local public goods and extort bribes from local entrepreneurs. We show that an increase in the share of locally raised tax revenue left with the local government raises its...

Russian Abstract: В работе рассмотрены методические подходы к оценке влияния инструментов межбюджетного регулирования на экономическое развитие регионов, влияние...

Russian Abstract: Налоговая политика непосредственно влияет на состояние делового климата в стране и конкурентоспособность национального бизнеса. На протяжении...

We apply both conventional and spatial techniques to panel data for US states to examine the effects of plausibly exogenous oil price shocks on economic growth. Contrary to the oil curse claims, we find that oil price shocks have numerically moderate but highly statistically significant positive...