This paper identifies and investigates conceptual and empirical links among Russia?s disappointing growth performance of the mid-1990s, its costly and eventually unsuccessful stabilization, the macroeconomic meltdown of 1998 and the spectacular rise of non-payments. Non-payments developed into a...

April 2000 - In Russia, implicit subsidies amounting to 10 percent of GDP per year in the form of nonpayments have stifled growth, contributed to the August 1998 macroeconomic crisis through their impact on public debt, and made at best a questionable contribution to equity. Hardening budgets...