The experience of countries adjusting in the wake of the global crisis of 1997-2000 has awakened many debates related to the political economy and social costs of adjustment. Amongst these, the experience of Russia is particularly controversial, both because of the great severity of the shock...

In accounting for the rather gloomy trend of the aid effectiveness literature over the last few years, one explanatory strand has been fiscal, suggesting in particular that aid flows in weak states have tended to erode the taxbase and the structure of institutions. We pursue this idea, tracing...