Three hypotheses about the nature of federal tax arrears in Russia in the second half of the 1990s are tested empirically. Tax arrears can be a result of: 1) liquidity problems in firms, 2) redistribute subsidies of the federal government, or 3) regional political resistance to federal tax...

This paper addresses the political economy background of import protection policy in Russia under the system of policy-making institutions developed during the period 1992–1997. Models explaining import penetration levels and import tariff rates are constructed and estimated independently as...

Based on unique data set on Russian city budgets, this paper shows that revenue sharing between regional and local governments provides local governments with no incentive to increase tax base or provide public goods. Any change in local government’s own revenues is almost entirely offset by...

Male life expectancy at birth fell by over six years in Russia between 1989 and 1994. Many other countries of the former Soviet Union saw similar declines, and female life expectancy fell as well. Using cross-country and Russian household survey data, we assess six possible explanations for this...

Both Western and Soviet estimates of GNP growth in the USSR indicate that GNP per capita grew in every decade - sometimes rapidly - from 1928 to 1985. While this measure suggests that the standard of living improved in the USSR throughout this period, it is unclear whether this economic growth...

We study the nature of judicial bias in bankruptcy proceedings following the enactment of bankruptcy law in Russia in 1998. We find that regional political characteristics affected judicial decisions about the numbers and types of bankruptcy procedures initiated after the law took effect. In...

The present paper considers two types of models of interaction between a tax authority and a group of taxpayers. The first type of model assumes no corruption, and the strategy of the authority is the probability of auditing a taxpayer depending on his/her declared income and other available...