Since Tsarist times, Russia's leaders, rather than pursue economic growth for its own sake, have sought control over economic activity as a means to manage their own support base, respond to perceived security threats and to facilitate their wider geopolitical ambitions. Balancing the needs of...

Inmates' informal code regulates their behavior and attitudes. We investigate whether prisons contribute to the spread of these norms to the general population using an exogenous shock of the Soviet amnesty of 1953, which released 1.2 million prisoners. We document the spread of prison norms in...

“Asia constitutes the hub of the transformation of global economic power today. The Gulf, itself part of Asia, is of increasing importance in this transformation. This book documents the growing interactions between the economies of the Gulf states and those of the rest of Asia. These...