Foreign Direct Investment into Russia has been low in comparison to other transition economies. We surveyed almost 50 European enterprises that conduct business in Russia and asked about the reasons behind their presence here and about the main problems they have encountered. Our survey shows...

This article investigates the connection between the apparently uncorrelated issues of tax evasion and privatisation. We first determine how the political process - given a country's level of development and income distribution - will determine the efficiency of its tax system. We then regard...

In this paper we investigate the relationship between corruption, human capital, and the monitoring capacities of civil society, as proxied for example by press freedom and an independent judicial system. In a theoretical model we find the impact of education on corruption to depend on the...

Over the last two decades, governments have most of the time granted -sometimes substantial - discounts when privatisating state assets. In average this discount has been higher under more right wing governments, and in more unequal countries. We present a simple political economy model of...

The gas industry is perhaps Russia's least reformed major sector. Prices are regulated, exports are monopolised and the domestic market is dominated by a state-controlled, vertically integrated monopolist, OAO Gazprom. Gazprom combines commercial and regulatory functions, and maintains tight...

This paper provides an in depth analysis of Russia's recent growth, with a view to understanding the prospects for its continuation. It examines in detail the main drivers of growth, as well as the main developments and policies that have been underlying it. A key finding is that the role of the...

Using a panel of 77 Russian regions from 1990-1998, we investigate the reasons behind largely differing regional growth performance. We consider politico-institutional characteristics, indicators of regional economic reform, and initial conditions (including economic, geographic and structural...

Long-term bond yields have been low in recent years both in nominal and real terms, and - especially in the United States - they have reacted differently to shifts in monetary and fiscal stances relative to previous cycles. This article examines various possible explanations for this behaviour,...

This paper provides an overview of the political economy of oil in the CIS. It briefly situates the region's oil sector potential in the global context, before analysing the structural features of the oil sectors by country. It examines the ways in which CIS oil industries have been organised...

This paper assesses how and in what circumstances, fiscal consolidations are affected by monetary conditions, using data covering 24 OECD countries over the past 25 years, Focusing on fiscal consolidation quot;episodesquot;, it is found that these tend to occur when large budget deficits...