The Russian economic crisis and the future of Russian economic reform

Europe - Asia Studies

Volumn 51, Issue 7, 1999, Pages 1141-1166

  Hanson, Philip ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM   (United Kingdom)

^b NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ECONOMIC PLANNING; ECONOMIC REFORM; FINANCIAL CRISIS;

RUSSIAN FEDERATION;

EID: 0033410174     PISSN: 09668136     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09668139998471     Document Type: Article

References (72)

1. Unless otherwise indicated, Russian macroeconomic statistics are cited from Russian Economic Trends (RET) using the most recent Monthly Update (http://www.hhs.site.se/site/recep).
2. A supposedly final version of the government's Anti-Crisis Programme, approved by both the government and the Central Bank in mid-November 1998, contained a great many loose ends. Successive versions of this programme had been leaked; each was amended, usually in a reform-compatible direction, from the one before. This version (BBC, Summary of World Broadcasts, 20 November 1998) amends the leaked version published in Kommersant" Daily, 27 October 1998.
3. Admittedly, the track record of Napoleonic behaviour is not too good, either. Mikhail Gorbachev was the last Russian leader who claimed to follow Napoleon ('On s'engage, et puis on voit', which can be loosely translated as 'Jump in and see what happens').
4. In what had hitherto been a shortage economy, price liberalisation could be expected to turn repressed into open inflation, but liberalisation by itself would produce only a one-time price shift.
5. The reference here is to 'old zlotys'. From the beginning of 1995 the zloty was re-denominated, with 10 000 old zlotys equalling 1 new zloty. The deterioration in the ruble exchange rate in 1992-95 was a nominal depreciation but for most of the time a real appreciation. That is, the exchange rate declined by less than ruble inflation exceeded dollar inflation. Thus, for example, Russian wages generally increased in dollar terms, though this implied nothing whatever about their local purchasing power.
6. I take the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development list of 'clients' as defining 'transition' or 'ex-communist' countries. This excludes China, Vietnam and Mongolia, which have some claims also to be undergoing 'transformation' - rather successfully, in the case of the first two.
7. OECD, OECD Economic Surveys. The Russian Federation 1995 (Paris, OECD, 1995), p. 27.
8. T. Frye & A. Shleifer, 'The Invisible Hand and the Grabbing Hand', American Economic Review, 87, 2 (Papers and Proceedings, 1997), pp. 354-358. The number of small firms in operation in Russia, according to official reporting, appears to level off after 1994.
9. There are some statistical puzzles here, because the definition for some purposes of a 'small enterprise' has been changed in Russia, and it is not clear whether there is a proper time-series for the number of small firms in operation. Also, unincorporated sole traders appear to be excluded from the data on 'small firms' in all years. It does, however, appear that the growth in numbers of small firms ceased in 1994-95, and their density (number per 10 000 population) is much below that in Poland. See Douglas Sutherland, Regional Economic Structure and the Process of Economic Transformation in the Russian Federation, The University of Birmingham, PhD thesis, 1997.
10. N. B. Kosareva, 'Zhilishchnaya politika v period ekonomicheskikh reform', paper presented at the Institute of the Economy in Transition, Moscow, 23 March 1998.
11. J. R. Earle & S. Estrin, 'After Voucher Privatization: The Structure of Corporate Ownership in Russian Manufacturing Industry', mimeo, London Business School, June 1997, show from panel data on 439 enterprises surveyed in July 1994 that even at that date there was a significant minority of firms in which outside blockholders may have had control.
12. Vladimir S. Zhukov, Corporate governance, strategies and performance of privatised industrial firms in the FSU, Nottingham University, PhD thesis, 1999.
13. OECD, Review of Agricultural Policies, as cited by Reuters, 20 October 1998.
14. Evgeniya Serova, 'Russian Agrarian Sector: Development and Prospects', Russian Economic Trends, January 1999, pp. 1-9.
15. The re-shaping of institutions is obviously also of enormous importance. The agenda specified here is based on an 'incentives' view of transformation: that liberalisation and stabilisation, supported by legislation to devolve property rights, will stimulate economic agents other than the state to undertake a great deal of the necessary institutional change. One might of course dispute this view. As for 'restructuring' of enterprises and the reallocation of resources between activities, I take these to be outcomes of transformation policies, not policy acts.
16. We do not yet have complete data for 1998.
17. Especially vekselya. These are bills of exchange; basically, tradable promissory notes, often with a limited and prescribed circulation, used inter alia to net out a chain of barter transactions.
18. Not only in the biggest cities, but also in some that are located in international gateways. In a study of industrial restructuring in Kaliningrad, where we were able to collect data for seven large enterprises in Kaliningrad city, we found that their total employment had fallen from above 20 000 in 1990 to just over 4000 in 1996-97 (P. Hanson & D. J. Sutherland, 'Economic Restructuring in Kaliningrad', The University of Birmingham, Russian Regional Research Group Working Paper No. 16, 1999).
19. A. Shorrocks & T. Khokhlova, 'Recent Trends in Russian Living Standards', Russian Economic Trends, Monthly Update, February 1999, pp. 1-8.
20. World Bank, World Development Report 1996. From Plan to Market (Washington DC, World Bank, 1996).
21. A useful distinction was made between indicators of the degree of liberalisation reached at a particular point of time and cumulative indicators, which took into account the length of time the economy had had to respond to liberalisation.
22. The reduction in the government deficit in 1995 had been achieved largely by basing the federal budget plan on improbably low inflation assumptions. The higher rate of inflation that was actually experienced swelled revenue, while most spending was held to the planned nominal levels - i.e. was less than planned in real terms. This was not a device that the Russian parliament was going to be fooled by twice. Meanwhile the curbing of ruble money supply growth was being achieved by credit financing of the deficit, by means of treasury bills (GKOs). That was perceived at the time by several Russian commentators (but few Westerners) as likely to turn into an unsustainable pyramid scheme. See below.
23. For example, the Baltic states all score comparatively well on transition indicators, but their GDP recovery levels are less impressive than those of Central European states with similar transition indicators: this probably reflects the later start on transformation in the former USSR and the close entanglement of these economies with the depressed Russian economy. Conversely, Slovakia has probably benefited from the reform impetus to which it was subjected initially as part of a still-united Czechoslovakia, and subsequently from its proximity to the Czech Republic.
24. The word 'daft' may be considered unseemly. If so, let us make it an acronym: it can stand for distant and frozen towns.
25. This is not to say that there has not been substantial migration within Russia in the 1990s. The population of Chukotka, to take an extreme case, has halved. Every year, on average, about 2% of the population of a Russian oblast', krai or republic move from one such administrative region to another. Data from Goskomstat Rossii, Demograficheskii ezhegodnik Rossii 1997 (Moscow, 1997).
26. Communication from Julian Cooper. Ukraine also contains a sizeable chunk of the old Soviet military-industrial production complex; Slavs were considered more trustworthy than non-Slavs.
27. O. Blanchard & M. Kremer, 'Disorganization', Quarterly Journal of Economics, CXII, 4, November 1997, pp. 1091-1127. Elsewhere, Blanchard stresses that this hypothesis is not advanced on the assumption that pre-existing allocations were efficient or that the break-up of existing networks is in general not advisable. See Blanchard, The Economics of Transition, (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1997).
28. O. Blanchard & M. Kremer, 'Disorganization', Quarterly Journal of Economics, CXII, 4, November 1997, pp. 1091-1127. Elsewhere, Blanchard stresses that this hypothesis is not advanced on the assumption that pre-existing allocations were efficient or that the break-up of existing networks is in general not advisable. See Blanchard, The Economics of Transition, (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1997).
29. Poul Thomsen notes (personal communication) that the inherited industrial structure in Bulgaria and Romania has much in common in this respect with that of Russia and other CIS countries. This strengthens the suspicion that the size distribution of industrial enterprises and the length of supply chains may be a particular source of difficulties in transformation in countries where the industrial sector was mostly created under central planning.
30. Robert Putnam, Making Democracy Work, Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1993). Strong evidence of the weakness of social capital in Russia is provided by Richard Rose, 'Getting Things Done in an Anti-Modern Society: Social Capital Networks in Russia', Studies in Social Policy, 304 (1998)
31. Robert Putnam, Making Democracy Work, Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1993). Strong evidence of the weakness of social capital in Russia is provided by Richard Rose, 'Getting Things Done in an Anti-Modern Society: Social Capital Networks in Russia', Studies in Social Policy, 304 (1998)
32. I have developed this line of argument in 'What Kind of Capitalism is Developing in Russia?', Communist Economies & Economic Transformation, 9, 1, 1997, pp. 27-43.
33. Anders Åslund, in accounting for the failures in Russia's transformation so far, has put particular stress on (a) the blocking of further change by the 'winners' of 1990-93, (b) the role of rent seeking in those early winnings and (c) the opportunities for rent seeking provided precisely by the incompleteness of early reforms. See his 'Why Has Russia's Transformation Been so Arduous?', paper presented at the World Bank Annual Conference on Development Economics (ACDE), April 1999. What I am arguing is that the incompleteness of the early Russian reforms is not simply to be treated as a series of policy errors derived from misunderstanding or misjudgement, but as a series of compromises conceded by the Gaidar-Chubais group because they faced enormous resistance from most of the Russian political and business elite to more thorough-going measures. Chubais' conceding of 'variant 2' large-scale privatisation, allowing more insider control, is an example. The strength of that elite resistance in Russia and other CIS countries, I would argue, stems from initial conditions (whether of economic structure, social capital or both) that differed sharply from those obtaining in Central Europe.
34. Joseph Stiglitz, the World Bank's chief economist, recognising that the conventional wisdom has so far failed in many ex-communist countries, has stressed the problems arising from rapid large-scale privatisation ahead of the development of institutions that would provide competitive capital markets through which an efficient allocation (or re-allocation) of property rights would be enforced. See his keynote address to the 1999 World Bank ACDE, 'Whither Reform? Ten Years of the Transition'. Perhaps the key lesson, he suggests, is 'that massive institutional change cannot be directed from the centre ...'. This Popperian view of 'free-market bolshevism' was, as it happens, expressed by Karl Popper himself (in a Radio Free Europe interview with George Urban) in 1992. It was wrong with respect to the Baltic States and most of Central Europe, and right for the CIS.
35. Or about $4.4 billion in current market prices. Financial Times, 21 July 1998.
36. Financial Times, 17 August 1998, p. 1.
37. Financial Times, 18 August 1998, pp. 1, 2, 15, 16, 24, 25.
38. It was estimated that Russian commercial banks had $1.5 billion in debt repayments due in August-December. Oxford Analytica, East Europe Daily Brief, 17 August 1998, II.
39. The TsBR soon spent the July IMF tranche of $4.8 billion on this defence. Financial Times, 20 August 1998, p. 1.
40. Financial Times, 27 August 1998, pp. 1, 2.
41. Russian Economic Trends, Monthly Update, September 1998.
42. The President can dismiss the Duma if it rejects his prime ministerial nomination three times, and call new elections. On the other hand, the Duma was preparing impeachment proceedings against the President. If these had been brought forward in time, they could have blocked the disbanding of the Duma.
43. Details of the programme were given in United Financial Group's 'Russia Morning Comment', 9 September 1998 (http://www.ufg.ru).
44. The central bank (TsBR) and the state savings bank (Sberbank) held a half or rather more of all GKOs, and could be counted on, as loyal servants of the Russian state, to keep rolling them over. It was the other holders of GKOs whose loyalty was vulnerable. When the devaluation and default of 17 August were announced, the current market value of the stock of GKOs in circulation, at pre-devaluation exchange rates, was about $40 billion, of which it was generally reckoned that foreign investors held about $17 billion. (Financial Times, 24 August 1998, p. 3).
45. Nicholas Horsewood & Douglas Sutherland, 'Market Efficiency in Transition: Equity Markets and EU Accession', draft, The University of Birmingham, 1998. The authors note that their tests do not allow for possible same-day contagion.
46. J. R. Reeder et al., 'Business Losses in Russia: The Inevitable Search for Accountability and Deep Pockets', Johnson's Russia List, 3047, 8 February 1999.
47. Net capital outflow probably ceased in the first three-quarters of 1997 (see the balance of payments data in Finansovye izvestiya, 19 February 1998, pp. iii-iv). Large gross outflows were continuing, however. In late 1997 and early 1998 there seems to have been a reversion to net outflows. Much depends, however, on one's interpretation of the 'errors and omissions' item - and indeed on one's assessment of the Russian trade and payments data in general.
48. This last point is persuasively argued by V. Mau, 'Politicheskaya priroda i uroki finansovoo krizisa', Voprosy ekonomiki, 1998, 11, pp. 4-9.
49. It is the financing of the federal budget deficit (7.0% of GDP in 1997) that is referred to here. There are four elements in the Russian general government balance: the federal budget, the sum of the consolidated budgets of regional and local governments (a deficit of over 1% of GDP in 1997), federal off-budget funds and regional and municipal off-budget funds. No systematic data are available on the last of these. Identified regional and municipal borrowing in 1997 was about two-thirds of the apparent deficit in consolidated regional and local budgets. Data from Russian Economic Trends (budget balances) and the Russian Ministry of Finance (register of sub-national bond issues).
50. Mau, 'Politicheskaya priroda i uroki ...'; A. Illarionov, 'Kak byl organizovan Rossiiskii finansovyi krizis', Voprosy ekonomiki, 1998, 11, pp. 20-36. Illarionov's first point is a fair one, but one could quarrel over his measurement of the 'real, legal economy' (65% of official GDP in 1997, for instance). He estimated the virtual economy at half the stock of overdue payables in [at the end of?] each year; but these are stocks, and any adjustment to GDP measures should be a flow. In practice, for most of the years 1992-98, the change in this stock is not far from the 50% of stock that he uses, so the numerical difference would not be great. Another objection to his numbers may in practical terms be more serious: part of government revenue and spending has itself been 'virtual' (over-valued barter, tax offsets and other surrogates). Therefore the numerator needs to be reduced, and not just the denominator, in his revisionist estimates of the burden of the state on the economy. Some alternative calculations are given in Table 1.
51. Mau, 'Politicheskaya priroda i uroki ...'; A. Illarionov, 'Kak byl organizovan Rossiiskii finansovyi krizis', Voprosy ekonomiki, 1998, 11, pp. 20-36. Illarionov's first point is a fair one, but one could quarrel over his measurement of the 'real, legal economy' (65% of official GDP in 1997, for instance). He estimated the virtual economy at half the stock of overdue payables in [at the end of?] each year; but these are stocks, and any adjustment to GDP measures should be a flow. In practice, for most of the years 1992-98, the change in this stock is not far from the 50% of stock that he uses, so the numerical difference would not be great. Another objection to his numbers may in practical terms be more serious: part of government revenue and spending has itself been 'virtual' (over-valued barter, tax offsets and other surrogates). Therefore the numerator needs to be reduced, and not just the denominator, in his revisionist estimates of the burden of the state on the economy. Some alternative calculations are given in Table 1.
52. For an eloquent and forceful statement of this view, see Simon Clarke, 'Structural Adjustment without Mass Unemployment? Lessons from Russia', in S. Clarke (ed.), Structural Adjustment without Mass Unemployment? Lessons from Russia (Cheltenham, Edward Elgar, 1998), pp. 9-87. This was written before the crisis began.
53. The evidence is reviewed in S. Commander & C. Mummsen, 'Understanding Barter in Russia', EBRD Working Paper 37, January 1999. They point out that barter transactions can include an element of credit where the time needed for one party to turn the goods received into money is greater than it is for the other party. To the extent that this was the case for tax and utilities payments in kind (and there is ubiquitous anecdotal evidence that it was), those transactions incorporated an element of credit.
54. These three snippets of information are from United Financial Group, 'Russia Morning Comment', 1 October 1998 (http://www.ufg.ru); John-Paul Smith, 'What Can Stop the Economy's Fall?', Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Emerging Markets Investment Research, 10 September 1998; and Anders Åslund, 'Russia's Financial Crisis: Causes and Possible Remedies', Post-Soviet Geography and Economics, 39, 6, 1998, pp. 309-329. Gazprom is also owed large sums by Ukrainian and other CIS users of Russian gas. An analysis of Gazprom's 1997 consolidated income statement and end-year balance sheet concludes (inter alia) that the increased pressure on the company to pay its federal tax bills in that year was met by borrowing abroad (a total of $5.4 billion). Domestic cash revenue was too low to meet the tax demands. Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Emerging Markets Investment Research, 'Emerging Markets: Russian Oil and Gas', 23 July 1998.
55. These three snippets of information are from United Financial Group, 'Russia Morning Comment', 1 October 1998 (http://www.ufg.ru); John-Paul Smith, 'What Can Stop the Economy's Fall?', Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Emerging Markets Investment Research, 10 September 1998; and Anders Åslund, 'Russia's Financial Crisis: Causes and Possible Remedies', Post-Soviet Geography and Economics, 39, 6, 1998, pp. 309-329. Gazprom is also owed large sums by Ukrainian and other CIS users of Russian gas. An analysis of Gazprom's 1997 consolidated income statement and end-year balance sheet concludes (inter alia) that the increased pressure on the company to pay its federal tax bills in that year was met by borrowing abroad (a total of $5.4 billion). Domestic cash revenue was too low to meet the tax demands. Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Emerging Markets Investment Research, 'Emerging Markets: Russian Oil and Gas', 23 July 1998.
56. These three snippets of information are from United Financial Group, 'Russia Morning Comment', 1 October 1998 (http://www.ufg.ru); John-Paul Smith, 'What Can Stop the Economy's Fall?', Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Emerging Markets Investment Research, 10 September 1998; and Anders Åslund, 'Russia's Financial Crisis: Causes and Possible Remedies', Post-Soviet Geography and Economics, 39, 6, 1998, pp. 309-329. Gazprom is also owed large sums by Ukrainian and other CIS users of Russian gas. An analysis of Gazprom's 1997 consolidated income statement and end-year balance sheet concludes (inter alia) that the increased pressure on the company to pay its federal tax bills in that year was met by borrowing abroad (a total of $5.4 billion). Domestic cash revenue was too low to meet the tax demands. Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Emerging Markets Investment Research, 'Emerging Markets: Russian Oil and Gas', 23 July 1998.
57. These three snippets of information are from United Financial Group, 'Russia Morning Comment', 1 October 1998 (http://www.ufg.ru); John-Paul Smith, 'What Can Stop the Economy's Fall?', Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Emerging Markets Investment Research, 10 September 1998; and Anders Åslund, 'Russia's Financial Crisis: Causes and Possible Remedies', Post-Soviet Geography and Economics, 39, 6, 1998, pp. 309-329. Gazprom is also owed large sums by Ukrainian and other CIS users of Russian gas. An analysis of Gazprom's 1997 consolidated income statement and end-year balance sheet concludes (inter alia) that the increased pressure on the company to pay its federal tax bills in that year was met by borrowing abroad (a total of $5.4 billion). Domestic cash revenue was too low to meet the tax demands. Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Emerging Markets Investment Research, 'Emerging Markets: Russian Oil and Gas', 23 July 1998.
58. 'To some extent' because in fact some labour was moving from old enterprises to new; but labour supply to the de novo sector was restricted by the continued provision of workplaces in non-viable enterprises to those who would have moved only if pushed by plant closures.
59. See W. Tompson, 'The Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing', mimeo, Birkbeck College, September 1998; W. Tompson, 'Russian Bankruptcy Law Reconsidered', mimeo, Birkbeck College, August 1998.
60. See W. Tompson, 'The Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing', mimeo, Birkbeck College, September 1998; W. Tompson, 'Russian Bankruptcy Law Reconsidered', mimeo, Birkbeck College, August 1998.
61. The latter view is taken by Clifford G. Gaddy & Barry W. Ickes, 'Beyond a Bailout: Time to Face Reality About Russia's "Virtual Economy" ', Foreign Affairs, 22, 1998, pp. 53-67.
62. David M. Woodruff, 'It's Value that's Virtual: Bartles, Rubles and the Place of Gazprom in the Russian Economy', forthcoming in Post-Soviet Affairs, argues that Gaddy & Ickes make an unnecessary assumption that a great deal of so-called 'value-subtracting' is involved, and are wrong to interpret Gazprom's acquiescence in barter settlements and the like as requiring a 'political' explanation. Rightly, in my view, he does not challenge the general thrust of their main argument, as summarised here.
63. Gaddy & Ickes.
64. Ibid., p. 61.
65. Compare (e.g.) Kommersant"-Daily, 27 October 1998 with BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 20 November 1998. The latter was approved by the TsBR and the government.
66. This practice is contrary to federal law, but local courts were unlikely to act against it. There are in any case other ways of attempting such bans, like telling the local railway not to provide freight cars to major grain trading companies.
67. Or am I being paranoid? Visitors to Russia can be inoculated against typhoid, diphtheria and yellow fever, but not paranoia.
68. A proposal of substantial forgiveness (i.e. writing off) of Russian debt has come from an unlikely quarter: Poland. The former Polish Finance Minister, Grzegorz Kolodko, has suggested this - of course, on condition of radical reform. Poland was certainly helped by debt forgiveness: but it was also ready to help itself.
69. According to Finance Minister Mikhail Zadornov, quoted in United Financial Group, 'Russia Morning Comment', 17 February 1999 (http://www.ufg.ru).
70. Izvestiya, 26 February 1999.
71. Information from Russian participants (from several regions) at an ESRC project workshop on 'Understanding Regional Patterns of Economic Change in Russia', The University of Birmingham, November 1998 (ESRC project R000 236 398).
72. Shorrocks & Khokhlova show that, in international perspective, the official Russian poverty level is relatively generous. (This is not true, however, of the minimum wage, currently $4 a month at the exchange rate, and less than $2 a day even at a plausible purchasing power parity.)