Several important studies of institutions assume that the quality of institutions is persistent following some formative historic event. The assumption of institutional persistence, however, begs the question of how these institutions persisted. To better understand this issue, this paper...

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Bank-issued credit is an important source of external financing for dynamic firms in transition economies. However, banks with a primary mission of issuing loans to private firms have only recently emerged in Russia. While this emergence (and subsequent expansion) appears to be carrying...