Fifteen Years of Economic Reform in Russia: What Has Been Achieved? What Remains to Be Done? (original) (raw)

Fifteen Years of Economic Reform in Russia

OECD Economics Department Working Papers, 2005

Fifteen years of economic reform in Russia: what has been achieved? What remains to be done? The paper provides an overview of the course of economic reform and the performance of the Russian economy since the early 1990s and an analysis of the structural reform challenges ahead. It assesses the contribution of institutional and structural reforms to economic performance over the period, before turning to the question of where further structural reforms could make the biggest contribution to improved performance. Three major conclusions emerge. First, there is still a great deal to be done to strengthen the basic institutions of the market economy. While the Russian authorities have embarked on some impressive-and often technically complex-'second-generation' reforms, many 'first-generation' reforms have yet to be completed. Secondly, the central challenges of Russia's second decade of reform are primarily concerned with reforming state institutions. Thirdly, the pursuit of reforms across a broad front could enable Russia to profit from complementarities that exist among various strands of reform.

Market Reforms in Russia - Problems and Prospects

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

The author analyses the economic reforms that have been implemented in Russia since 1991. In his opinion initial attempts to introduce market reforms by applying the shock therapy and forced-pace privatisation of state-owned enterprises caused high political and social costs to the Russia's fragile democracy. Therefore the radical reform policy was temporarily suspended, while the transition to a market economy was proceeded inconsistently and often unevenly. After the acute financial crisis took place in August 1998 the reform policy has been given new impetus. In the last few years substantial progress has been made in the process of privatisation, implementation of reforms in the financial sphere, energy sector, in the approach to the agriculture, in the employment policy, in making changes of the tax and pension systems. All these changes contributed to attaining the sustainable economic growth. The author concludes that for the persisting crisis in a number of areas, the future of the Russian market reforms still remains largely uncertain. Today's Russia between 1922 and 1991 was the largest and most populous constituent republic of the Soviet Union. It declared its sovereignty on 12 June 1990 and on 8 December 1991 became a founding member of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). In the United Nations, Russia took the seat of the USSR on 24 December 1991, and with the latter's dissolution the next day turned into a full-fledged sovereign state. In April 1992, it joined the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), in June the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (IBRD), and in November 1998 the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). From July 1991 to December 1999, Russia's president was Boris Yeltsin, whose wide-ranging authority was further enhanced by the constitution adopted in December 1993. 2 The contradictory character of market reforms in the nineties can be attributed not to a little extent to the emergence of the so-called 'family', i.e. the elite around Yeltsin, and to the struggle for the redistribution of power and wealth. Yeltsin's heir, Vladimir Putin, who took over the presidency on 31 December 1999, has recently been trying to achieve change increasingly relying on his secret service, military and business associates in the formation of his political course vis-à-vis the 'family'. However, the situation is complicated by the fact that in the Russian Federation the government must, in the course of centralisation, consider the interests of regional elites, too. The present article is to analyse the economic processes of the past decade with the objective of giving a more or less comprehensive picture about the principal directions of market reforms, the situation in Russia's economy and the challenges it is now facing.

Two years of economic reforms in Russia — Main results

MOCT-MOST: Economic Policy in Transitional Economies, 1994

for helpful exchange of view concerning the economic situation in Russia. I want to acknowledge also the role of the staff of the Macroeconomic and Financial Unit of Ministry of Finance of Russia (MFU), especially of Brigitte Granville and Torun Hedback, in supplying me with necessary statistical data. Michael Cader was the translator of the Polish version into English. However, I am solely responsible for the content of this paper and its deficiencies.

The Problems of Development of Economic Institutions in Russia

Asian Social Science, 2014

Delayed payments of wages, defaults, hostile takeovers of privatized companies and similar actions caused a lot of problems in economic system of Russia. Notwithstanding the every effort taken by the government, the new model of economic management was inefficient until a cluster of complementary institutions was formed. Analysis of transformation processes in the Russian economy shows that the evolution of economic institutions has since the early 90s been a complicated, often inconsistent process, mainly directed towards internalization of informal institutions, import of institutions and restoration of institutions. The paper examines the evolution of economic institutions in Russia since the beginning of market reforms. The authors reveled the close relationship and direct correlation between the effectiveness of Russian economic reforms and forming the new economic institutions.

Russia: Progress in Structural Reform and Framework Conditions

OECD Economics Department Working Papers, 2011

In the 16 years since the OECD began conducting Economic Surveys of the Russian Federation, a great many policy recommendations relating to structural reform and framework conditions have been made. This paper, expanding on Annex 1.A1 in the 2011 OECD Economic Survey of the Russian Federation, provides a summary tabulation of the state of implementation of a large number of these past Survey recommendations.

An update on reform in Eastern Europe and Russia

China Economic Review, 1993

The paper reviews the experience of Poland and Russia with economic reform, with occasional comparison to China's experience. The author argues that macroeconomic chaos in Poland and Russia preceded reform and was allayed by reform; that there is no necessary tradeoff between reform and growth, and that the Polish and Russian experience shows that it is possible to create clear property rights quickly. JEL Classification #s: Eo, 05, P2. I am honored to be here today, especially in Hainan, where the fruits of China's economic reform are most visible. As a non-specialist in China, I plan to follow my obvious comparative advantage, by limiting my remarks to an update on the ideas motivating reform in Eastern Europe and Russia, and the results achieved thus far. Radical reform in Eastern Europe has been going on for three years, and in Russia, for one and a half. Compared with China, some obvious differences include the speed of reform and the enormous political change. In addition, the initial conditions were different. These are urban industrial societies, whereas China can draw on a vast, underemployed agricultural labor force and can thereby build up new sectors without necessarily tearing down the old ones. Furthermore, Eastern Europe and Russia were already in the midst of macroeconomic chaos. Reform did not create that chaos; it was inherited. Shock therapy does not create inflation and instability, but seeks to allay it. Let me begin with Poland. As regards the objectives of Polish reform, there are three strongly held positions. First, Poland's objective is to become a member of the European Community (EC), with an industrial market economy like those in Western Europe. This will require, for example, adopting over 7000 regulations and laws as a prerequisite for membership, and an ownership structure like the rest of the EC, in which no more than 15-20 percent of the economy is state-owned. Second, Polish reform aims at deep structural adjustment, not just economic growth, because of the Stalinist legacy of over-developed heavy industry. This requires a drop in heavy industrial output, to free up resources for light industry and services. (In China, by contrast, rural reform freed up agricultural labor, obviating the need to shrink heavy industry directly.) And lastly, Poland's reform had to eliminate macroeconomic instability-an inflation rate of 54 percent per month in October 1989, immediately after the new government was sworn in. Poland's reform strategy stressed speed: rapid legal reforms, freeing up prices, ending the deficit, to achieve a market economy within five years and membership in the EC by the year 2000. Thus as of January 1,1990, almost all price controls, subsidies and trade barriers were eliminated, and in mid-1990, a rapid privatization campaign began. This had the effect