This paper reports first results from a survey of 404 middle-sized and large manufacturing firms from 40 Russian regions in April-June 2003. We examine the extent of social service and infrastructure provision by the firms and the firms' assessment of the quality of public infrastructure and the...

This paper reports first results from a survey of 404 middle-sized and large manufacturing firms from 40 Russian regions in April-June 2003. We examine the extent of social service and infrastructure provision by the firms and the firms’ assessment of the quality of public infrastructure and...

We examine the choice of economic reforms when policymakers have present-biased preferences and can choose to discard information (maintain confidence) to mitigate distortions from excess discounting. The decisions of policymakers and firms are shown to be interdependent. Confident policymakers...