These studies are the result of research in the development of the National Economy of the U. S. S. R. which was carried out by me under the auspices of the National Institute for Economic and Social Research during 1940 and 1941. Every chapter consists of two parts: a general description of the peculiarities of the Soviet System, its forms of organisation and the specific conditions under which the development takes place, and a special part which Lives an analysis of the current events. This analysis is extended up to 1941, and thus gives information about current events which took place in the economic life of the U. S. S. R. on the eve of the German attack on the U. S. S. R. The chapter about internal trade is somewhat differently constructed. It contains a brief historical summry survey of the development of internal trade during the whole period of 1918 to 1941. The main processes of the transition from the competitve to the State system of organising the National Economy were reflected on the internal market. On the internal market State planning intervention in the economic life of the country collided with the economic activity of the population itself; this very often forced the Government to change its economic policy or the form of its application. Consequently I find it necessary, in the analysis of the development of internal trade, to gibe a brief historical summary survey and to let it precede all the other chapters. A considerable part of these studies was published in the following journals: " The Economic Journal", "Economica", Royal Economic Society Memoranda and in London and Cambridge Economic Service Bulletins.

The thesis analyses the Russian currency crisis in August 1998. The crisis is placed in the context of theoretical and empirical literature, taking into account the lessons from the Asian crisis in 1997-1998. The relative importance of economic fundamentals, expectations, structural issues, external effects, liquidity problems and institutional deficiencies as causes for the Russian crisis is assessed. It is found the Russian crisis does not adequately fit any of the existing theoretical approaches. The crises in the currency and financial markets were inseparably intertwined with the fiscal problems. However, the seminal second-generation model of Obstfeld can be used as a starting point for theoretical analysis with some modifications. I demonstrate how these modifications can be implemented to capture the specific conditions of an economy like Russia, i.e., one which is characterised by the shallow financial sector and the inadequate fiscal sector. In our quest to explain the tight link between the currency and the banking sector, we point to the core problems of Russian economic transition, including challenges with structural reforms and institutional development. It is argued that the Russian crisis is best treated as a triple crisis, involving the currency markets, the banking sector and weak public finances. In addition, our analysis helps in assessing Russia's overall economic transition process, while it also has implications for the country's current reform challenges, macroeconomic situation and general economic prospects. The crisis is also put into a more general empirical setting. Following Eichengreen, Rose and Wyplosz, exchange rate pressure indices for 21 Eastern European transition economies in 1992-98 are calculated and the behaviour of key macroeconomic fundamentals during crisis and non-crisis periods is analysed by non-parametric econometric testing. No firm evidence of first-generation patterns is found. On the other hand, the analysis provides cautious support for the finding that intermediate exchange rate regimes are more crisis-prone than either free floats or very tight pegs.

No description available.

International Financial Institutions and various national governments, via their respective bi-lateral donor programmes, have sought to assist in the transformation of the Russian economy since 1991. Initially, the main aim of development programmes was to try and nurture the emergence of a free market economy and democratic society. This thesis argues, however, that too little attention was paid to the necessary evolution of a new mode of social regulation (MSR) that would support an adherence to free market principles. There was an assumption that a new MSR, constituted by social practices/institutions, would emerge spontaneously in response to the changes in the way capital was accumulated. But, IFIs and other donors failed to recognise the embeddedness of social practices and the evolution of hybrid modes of social regulation. Through an analysis of two case study regions, Leningrad and Sakhalin oblasts, and work at the federal level, the thesis demonstrates the importance of understanding the current and fragmented mode(s) of social regulation and processes of governance when trying to theorise about transformation in Russia, as well as in assessing the impact of IFIs and other donors. It is shown that IFIs and donors need to recognise the dominance of disincentives to change and processes of exclusion, which impede the (re)creation of so-called 'appropriate' institutions. Furthermore it is possible to discern as intensification of the process of uneven development as individual regions find their own way with coping with the exigencies of transformation. Explanations for these processes do not just lie in the regions' relationships with federal government, or on the industrial legacies of the Soviet era, but also on individuals, social networks and practices and the different geographies of regional economic regulation.

No description available.

The primary objective of this thesis is to contribute to the debate on the reasons behind Russia's poor economic performance in its first decade after the fall of communism, by examining the role of IMF economic programs in the reform process.In particular, we are interested in the failure of neo-classical models of the market economy, upon which economic reform programs were based, to predict the outcomes in Russia. The purpose of the work is to offer a number of theoretical models which incorporate certain characteristics, such as political and economic motivations of both the IMF and Russian government, large-scale public sector corruption, a substantial underground economy, and a weak tax base, and which are capable predicting the resulting failings in the IMF-Russia economic reform program. In chapter 2, we present a theory of conditionality in which the recipient, aware that the lender faces political and economic motivations in the conditional development lending process, undertakes a game with the lender in which the recipient attempts to undertake the least amount of compliance that guarantees it future loans. There is an exogenous conflict between economics and politics within the lending agency that determines its degree of tolerance for policy (non-) compliance. We then analyse how the donor, in an attempt to regulate its internal conflict, may adopt "rules of thumb" in the lending process which pre-define the actions it will take in response to the lender's level of compliance. The recipient's strategy depends on the payoffs it obtains from the actions available to the lender under each "rule of thumb". We examine how the IMF-Russia relationship from 1992-2002 has elements of the games we model. In chapter 3, we model corruption a proportional tax on labour income in a three-sector economy with a corrupt bureaucracy, a legitimate private sector, and a shadow economy, and examine how tighter fiscal policies may result in a rise in corruption. The rise in corruption negatively affects legitimate private sector employment and output. We suggest that the Russian economy has a similar three sector structure and analyse the impact of reduced spending and increased taxation on corruption and employment. In chapter 4, we modify Alesina and Tabellini's (1987) model of time inconsistency to allow for a weak tax base and then apply it to post-communist Russia. In particular we examine two non-consecutive time periods in which, for different reasons, public debt could not be used to finance the government's budget deficit: 1992-94 and post August 17 1998. We suggest that Russia did in fact move from one sub-optimal position to another, and we raise questions about the optimality of Russia's current monetary policies. In chapter 5, we examine the optimality of monetary policy in the presence of bureaucratic corruption. We model corruption as a proportional tax on firm revenue and a positive function of the official tax rate. The higher the official tax, the higher the corruption tax levied by public bureaucrats in order to supplement their decreasing official net wage, and the lower is output. We find that under both discretion and commitment, inflation is higher, and output and taxation are lower, than when there is no corruption.

No description available.

Between 1928 and 1934 Soviet society experienced what amounted to two industrial revolutions: the adaptation of a largely non-industrial working population to industry and the introduction of new technologies and methods of management. These radical changes inevitably gave rise to problems of labour discipline, expressed most graphically in soaring rates of labour turnover and absenteeism. These problems were exacerbated by the pace, intensity and scope of Soviet industrialisation and by the social policies that accompanied this drive. As in any such process these problems had to be tackled by utilising a blend of measures based on compulsion, conviction and incentive. The present work examines the blend employed by the Soviet regime during the period under review to stimulate, in the shortest possible time scale, a general will for industrialisation and, having established that will and destroyed opposition to it, channel the energies thus generated into the desired directions. The distinctive element in this blend is identified as socialist competition, which the regime utilised to stimulate support for and stifle opposition to industrialisation, and, subsequently, to raise work skills to the level required by the modern industry being constructed. Moreover, socialist competition allowed the regime to implement a management system geared to the maximum priority of production interests, while preserving a commitment, albeit in abstract terms, to the concept of a workers' state.

A decade of growth and wealth generation in Russia ended in 2009 with the collapse in GDP and rising unemployment. This Great Recession added new economic challenges to the ‘old’ problems facing children and families, including widening income inequalities and the phenomenon of social orphanage. One question is how the new and existing material pressures affect parent–child relationships. This research contributes to the answer by examining, in aggregate terms, the role poverty plays in the allocation of parental time in this emerging economy. Utilising a nationally representative sample of children, it explores how child interactions with parents are affected by aggregate and idiosyncratic shocks. Drawing on the rational choice paradigm and its critique, we put forward the Parental Time Equilibrium as an analytical guide to the study. This theoretical approach presents individual decisions concerning time spent with children over the long term as the product of a defined equilibrium between resources and demands for involvement. We test this approach through pooled cross-sectional and panel analyses based on the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey dataset from 2007 to 2009. Children in low-income households face the double disadvantage of a lack of money and time investments at home, with both persistent and transient poverty being associated with lower than average parental time inputs in the sample. Moreover, while on average, we find that children do maintain the amount of time they spend with their parents under conditions of severe financial strain, low–income children lose out on play time with the mother. Material resources cannot be considered in isolation from structural disadvantages, of which rural location in particular is detrimental for parent–child time together. The study demonstrates that the cumulative stress of adverse macro-economic conditions and depleted material resources makes it difficult for parents to sustain their human investment in children. The evidence this study provides on the associations between economic stress and pa-rental time allocations advances our knowledge of the disparities of in the childhood experience in modern Russian society. The findings strongly support the equal importance of available resources and basic demand for involvement, thus drawing policy attention to the need to address both in the best interests of children.