We study the connection between the social pattern of conspicuous consumption, on the one hand, and financialization, on the other. Our claim is that greater availability of consumer loans from Russian banks feeds consumerism and promotes the institution of conspicuous consumption. Cars have...

Drawing on the merit goods concept developed by Richard A. Musgrave, this paper introduces the notion of quasi-merit goods. The criteria of eligibility for merit goods are vague. A quasi-merit good constitutes a special case where government protection and sponsorship are obtained via public...

This paper considers the comparative efficiency of public, private, and foreign banks in Rus-sia, a transition economy with several unusual features. We perform stochastic frontier anal-ysis (SFA) of Russian bank-level quarterly data over the period 2005–2013. The method of computation of...

The paper examines the Russian experience with explicit deposit guarantee. Some of the effects that this institution has produced in Russia are typical and well-researched by previous authors, namely moral hazard, adverse selection, and erosion of discipline. The social cost paid for having an...