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The Soviet Union created a unique form of urban modernity, developing institutions of social provisioning for hundreds of millions of people in small and medium-sized industrial cities spread across a vast territory. After the collapse of socialism these institutions were profoundly shaken--casualties, in the eyes of many observers, of market-oriented reforms associated with neoliberalism and the Washington Consensus. InPost-Soviet Social, Stephen Collier examines reform in Russiabeyondthe Washington Consensus. He turns attention from the noisy battles over stabilization and privatization during the 1990s to subsequent reforms that grapple with the mundane details of pipes, wires, bureaucratic routines, and budgetary formulas that made up the Soviet social state. Drawing on Michel Foucault's lectures from the late 1970s,Post-Soviet Socialuses the Russian case to examine neoliberalism as a central form of political rationality in contemporary societies. The book's basic finding--that neoliberal reforms provide a justification for redistribution and social welfare, and may work to preserve the norms and forms of social modernity--lays the groundwork for a critical revision of conventional understandings of these topics.

Using a unique dataset, we describe the degree of ownership concentration in Russian economy and its role in shaping economic and political institutions in Russia. In particular, we find that Russian ‘oligarchs’ do control a substantial part of the economy. While the relative weight of their firms in Russian economy is huge, they do not seem to be excessively large by the standards of the global economy where most of them are operating. The oligarchs seem to run their firms more efficiently than other Russian owners controlling for industry, region and size.

During the 1990s, Russia underwent an extraordinary transformation from a communist dictatorship to a multi-party democracy, from a centrally planned economy to a market economy, and from a belligerent adversary of the West to a cooperative partner. Yet a consensus in the US circa 2000 viewed Russia as a disastrous and threatening failure, and the 1990s as a decade of catastrophe for its citizens. Analyzing a variety of economic and political data, we demonstrate a large gap between this perception and the facts. In contrast to the common image, by the late 1990s Russia had become a typical middle-income capitalist democracy.

This article analyzes the business environment of regions on the example of the Russian Federation through a system of indicators that characterize the level of its development within the 8 selected groups of factors (general economic, social, demographical, innovative, natural and geographical, factors of living standards, financial, infrastructural). The main research methods are correlation analysis, regression analysis, and modeling. Based on the results of the research, the authors come to the conclusion about the key role of socio-demographic, general economic and innovative infrastructure conditions for the development of the business environment of the regions.

Male life expectancy at birth fell by over six years in Russia between 1989 and 1994. Many other countries of the former Soviet Union saw similar declines, and female life expectancy fell as well. Using cross-country and Russian household survey data, we assess six possible explanations for this upsurge in mortality. Most find little support in the data: the deterioration of the health care system, changes in diet and obesity, and material deprivation fail to explain the increase in mortality rates. The two factors that do appear to be important are alcohol consumption, especially as it relates to external causes of death (homicide, suicide, and accidents) and stress associated with a poor outlook for the future. However, a large residual remains to be explained.

This paper deals with macroeconomic relationships for Russian economic regions. An economic region is the main item of the regional statistics of the Russian Federation. Nowadays there are near 90 of regions and according to classification these can be industrial, agro- or subsidized regions A study is based upon the disaggregated macromodel for the Russian economic region. Then classification of the Russian regions by types of economic activity is made. Finally, we construct macroeconomic relationships for Russian economic regions specific by their type of economic activity This paper can be considered as the first attempt to create the model of the Russian regional level.

The kamikaze crew of liberal reformers, picked by former President Boris Yeltsin in the early 1990s, succeeded in overturning the planned economy and the authoritarian political arrangements of seven decades of Soviet Communism. However, the resulting breakdown of political cohesion and the urgency of restoring stability prompted Yeltsin to select Vladimir Putin as his successor. The consolidating impetus under Putin, who was elected president in early 2000, has raised concerns about the continuation of economic and political reforms under his leadership. In this essay, nine Russian interviewees look back on the reform issues under Yeltsin and look ahead on the unfolding political economy scenario under Putin. They include three principle economic reformers under Yeltsin, three economic policy analysts, and three banking professionals.

Alternative strategies of economic development have received little attention in the literature. Academics rarely compare certain strategic features or assess the performance of different strategies in terms of outcomes. This book seeks to address that gap and to provide a theoretical background to the shift from industry to human capital-intensive services as the engine of economic growth. Pioneering studies reveal interesting trends and patterns that point to the growing importance of intangible capital for the level of GDP. They also indicate a much greater role of economic freedom in bringing about this second great structural change than was the case with industrialization. With this perspective on structural change and the role of freedom, Shortcut or Piecemeal also provides an extensive assessment of four key developing countries: Brazil, Russia, India, and China. Subjects: 1. Central planning--History. 2. Economic development--History

The purpose of this study is to analyze the regional cluster structure of the Russian economy. To achieve this goal the following things were done. The cluster groups’ kernels structure, which had been developed by the European cluster observatory, was adapted for the Russian economy. Statistical databases were created with the number of employees and number of companies for the regions of the Russian Federation over the period of 2008–2012. The geographical concentration of cluster groups was assessed. The cluster groups developed in the Russian regions, for example in St. Petersburg, were identified according to the European cluster observatory criteria. Detection of positive agglomerative effects of concentration or urbanization in advanced cluster groups of the region allows assessing the innovative potential of the region development. The results of the study can be used to substantiate actions following the regional cluster policy.

The aim of the article is to analyze the Russian economic policy in its external dimension (economic expansion), in the context of discussions about changes in the global economy held in the Russian Federation. The starting point for reflections in this respect is Sergey Glazyev’s view of the current evolution of international relations. The article contrasts the propositions of the Russian author and the strategy of activities of the Kremlin, which uses the state corporations for its external targets.