In pursuit of its transition from a command to a market economy, Russia has witnessed enormous regional differences in economic growth rates. Moreover, the implementation of economic reforms has also differed markedly across regions. We analyze whether regional differences in reform policies can...

Working with 110 pairs of time series of state and market commodity prices in Russia, we search for signs of transition in Russia from a command to a market economy. Beginning with inter-city comparisons of state and market prices, we find that differences in the levels of these prices have...

A growing body of national-level survey evidence indicates that small-scale entrepreneurial activity has been an important engine of growth in post-socialist economies. Here we use a rich regional data set to obtain a statistical characterization of the relationship between entrepreneurial...

Post-Soviet Russia has experienced a considerable degree of regional economic fractionalization. While previous evidence has assigned a causal role to openness to international trade in accounting for this phenomenon, we show here that evidence of this nature is less clear-cut upon conditioning...

In pursuit of its transition from a command to a market economy, post-Soviet Russia has witnessed enormous regional differences in economic growth rates. Moreover, the economic reforms implemented under this transition, while initiated at the federal level, have also differed markedly across...

In the process of implementing market reforms, many post-socialist countries have struggled to preserve economic and political integration. Using a statistical model of commodity trade, we quantify the evolution of economic integration observed among regions within Russia during 1995-1999, and...

In pursuit of its transition from a command to a market economy, post-Soviet Russia has witnessed enormous regional differences in economic growth rates. Moreover, the economic reforms implemented under this transition, while initiated at the federal level, have also differed markedly across...

Governments that privatize state industries often retain control over key distribution assets. While there are many examples of this form of partial privatization, to our knowledge there are no substantial quantitative studies of how governments use their control under these circumstances. In...

We analyze the determinants of effective legal institutions (legality) using data from 49 countries. We show that the way the law was initially transplanted and received is a more important determinant than the supply of law from a particular legal family. Countries that have developed legal...

We use a statistical model of commodity trade to measure the extent of integration between regional commodity markets within Russia. Monthly time-series data on regional commodity prices spanning 1994 through 1999 indicate substantial temporal fluctuations in integration over this period: an...