This paper summarizes the IMF advice on the ruble area as it was presented to the national authorities in Russia, the Baltic countries, and other states of the former Soviet Union in 1991-93. In the course of doing so, the paper corrects some misperceptions that have arisen about the IMF's role....

The paper by John Odling-Smee and Gonsalo Paster (2002) has provided new insights on the political dimensions of the IMF's stand on the ruble zone. These political issues are discussed in the general context of the early reforms in the former Soviet states and more specifically they are...

The development of the institutional capacity to create and evaluate economic policies remains a critical need—and constraint—in most transition economies if they are to complete the successful passage to fully functioning market economies. To take an active role in the transition process,...

When the Soviet Union broke up, ten of the fifteen successor states were hit by hyperinflation. Hyperinflation is closely connected with the persistence of the common currency area in the CIS till 1993. Arguably, the preservation of the ruble zone was the worst single mistake in the...

A century ago, Alfred Marshall demonstrated the inefficiency associated with farmers receiving only a portion of their marginal product. Farmers will supply less labor than under arrangements in which they receive their marginal product; output will be sub-optimal. Explanations of sharecropping...

How should the economic performance of the Central Asian countries during the 1990s be measured? The most commonly used indicator is GDP, even though GDP estimates for transition economies are known to suffer from conceptual and methodological shortcomings. This paper combines national accounts...