The importance of initial conditions in economic transitions: An evaluation of economic reform progress in Russia

Journal of Socio-Economics

Volumn 26, Issue 4, 1997, Pages 359-381

  Millar, James R ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0031481968     PISSN: 10535357     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/S1053-5357(97)90002-0     Document Type: Article

References (52)

1. For the explicit model, see Soviet macroeconomic performance and policy. Linz S. The Soviet economic experiment. 1990;University of Illinois Press, Urbana. (chapter 11).
2. Bush K. The Russian economy. 1997;. (and sources cited in Table 3 on p. 3). Unpublished manuscript.
3. Bush K. Statistical handbook 1996. 1995;386-387 The World Bank, Washington, DC. especially.
4. Segodnia. 1996, February 28;3.
5. Segodnia. 1996, March, 23.
6. Moskovskii Komsomoletz. 1996, February 23;1.
7. The Moscow Tribune. 1996, April 3.
8. Illarionov A. Better than nothing. Business in Russia. 66:1996, June;14.
9. Based on interviews conducted by the author in Spring 1996.
10. For an analysis of the optimistic views offered in 1994, see Millar J.R. Reform progress in Russia: what's working and what's not [special Report, The WEFA Group]. Eurasia Economic Outlook. 1995;1.5-1.6. July.
11. Sachs J. The Moscow Times. 1996, April 6;8. Op. ed. page.
12. Hedlund S., Sundstrom N. The Russian economy after systemic change. 1995;29. Working Papers, November.
13. Referring to recent surveys by Paul Lazersfeld and Richard Rose The Economist. 1996, March;28-29.
14. Personal interviews by the author, Spring, 1996.
15. Hicks J.R. A theory of economic history. 1969;Oxford University Press, New York.
16. Polanyi K. The great transformation. 1957;Beacon Press, Boston.
17. Copeland M.A. Essays in socioeconomic evolution. 1981;Vantage Press, New York.
18. *).
19. Gross output of light industry fell almost 75% between 1990 and 1994. Business Central Europe. 1996, March;72.
20. An outcome predicted by Bergson A. Soviet labor. 1943;Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
21. Moscow News. 1996, March-April;8.
22. For an outrageous example see Shareholder showdown at massive ore smelter. The Moscow Times. March 28, 1996;1-2. in which the manager and his workers thumbed their noses at shareholders, which included Rossiisky Kredit Bank.
23. The Moscow Times. 1996, April 6;12.
24. The Moscow Times. 1996, March 8.
25. Moscow News. 1996, March-April;10.
26. Milner B.Z., et al. Gosudarstvennaia, podderzhka predprinimatel'stva: kontseptsiia, formy i melody. (Table 2) Moskva. 1995;50.
27. Business review. The Moscow Times. 1996, April 2;I.
28. Business review. The Moscow Times. 1996, March 19;I-II.
29. Special privileges with respect to import tariffs and taxation caused IBM, for example, to shut down its personal computer assembly plant in Russia as noncompetitive. To that point IBM had manufactured more that 40,000 computers. On the other hand, quite substantial subsidies have failed to protect the domestic automobile industries adequately. Their car designs date to the mid-1980s, their engines are gas guzzlers in a time when the price of petrol is rising sharply toward world price levels, and quality control is almost totally absent. Hence the decline and fall of Moskvich, the troubled state of the Lada-Zhiguli and the reluctance of Western auto makers to agree to joint ventures. In fact, General Motors has bypassed Russian carmakers altogether and plans to produce Chevy Blazers and Opel Vectra cars in new plants.
30. The Moscow Times. 1996, April 4;12.
31. Moscow News. 1996, March-April;8.
32. These traders are called chelnoki, which means " little shuttles," and they are attributed with 20-25% of all imports into Russia, a total in 1995 of over $10 million in dollar volume.
33. Kapital. The Moscow Times. 1996, March-April;1-2.
34. The Moscow Times. 1996, April;I.
35. See Millar J.R. History and analysis of Soviet domestic bond policy. Soviet Studies. XXVII:(4):1975;598-614.
36. Millar J.R., Bahry D. Financing development and tax structure change in the USSR. Canadian Slavonic Papers. XXI:(2):1979, June;166-174.
37. One example will do. The largest automobile manufacturer in Russia is Zhiguli, a plant designed as a turn-key operation in the 1960s by Fiat. In 1992, when the economy was opened up, the Togliatti plant was still producing cars designed in 1965. At that time it had a waiting list several years in length. Today it cannot make a profit.
38. Business Central Europe. 1996, March;72.
39. The Economist. 1996, April;65-66.
40. Vladimir Vinogradov, president of Inkombank one of Russia's largest, claims that 500-1000 of these banks are on the verge of bankruptcy.
41. International Herald Tribune. 1996, May 7;15.
42. International Herald Tribune. 1996, May 7;15.
43. "Illegal capital flight" is defined for these measures to be composed of "non-transferred export revenue" (back to Russia), "barter trade," and "errors and omissions" in the technical detail of official trade data.
44. Halligan L. The invisible hand. The Moscow Times. 1996, March 26;VI.
45. OMRI Daily Digest. 1995, June 23; These figures are certainly too high. Oleg Pavlov, chairman of the Federal Service on Currency and Export Control, reports that the total in capital flight between 1987 and 1995 was about $50 billion.
46. Nezavisimaia Gazeta. 1996, March 5;4.
47. See, for example Schroeder G. Soviet economy on a treadmill of reforms. Soviet economy in a time of change. 1979;312-340 The Joint Economic Committee Compendium.
48. See, for example Petrokov N., Perlamutrov B. Rossiia - zona ekonomicheskoi katastrofe. Voprosy Ekonomiki. 3:1996;74-83.
49. Interview with Nicholai Petrakov.
50. Zyuganov G.A. Sovremennaia Russkaia ideia i gosudarstvo. 1995;Obozrevatell, Moscow.
51. Abalkin L. Economic reform: zigzags of fate and lessons for the future. 1995;6 Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Economics, Moscow. who writes (in English, sic.), "On the one side, the state ownership with all its shortcomings was able to demonstrate a number of its evident advantages. And not only in concentration of gigantic resources that ensured the victory in war. On the bases of public property and planned management great, world-wide admitted achievements were made: radical breakthrough in the scientific and technological spheres, strategic parity with the USA under the conditions of severe antagonism during the 'cold war' period, mass development of higher education in the country, full employment of the population"
52. A well-placed insider scored the bank on a scale of 1 to 5, with the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Bundesbank assumed to be 5's, at a 6 for effort and a.