The Russian Economy has evolved into a hybrid form, a partially monetized quasi-market system that has been called the virtual economy. In the virtual economy, barter and non-monetary transactions play a key role in transferring value from productive activities to the loss-making sectors of the economy. We show how this transfer takes place, and how it can be consistent with the incentives of economic agents. We analyze a simple partial-equilibrium model of the virtual economy, and show how it might prove an obstacle to industrial restructuring and hence marketizing transition. Published in: Review of Economic Design vol 6, issue 2 (2001) pp. 185-214, ISSN 1434-4742.

Clifford Gaddy's and Barry Ickes' thesis-- that Russia's economy is based on illusion or pretense about nearly every important economic yardstick, including prices, sales, wages and budgets-- has forced broad recognition of the inadequacies of the intended market reform policies in Russia and provided a coherent framework for understanding how and why so much of Russia's economy has resisted reform.

Bear Traps examines Russia’s longer term economic growth prospects. It argues that Russia’s growth challenges are conventionally misdiagnosed and examines the reasons why: a spatial misallocation that imposes excess costs on production and investment; distortions to human capital; an excessively high relative price of investment that serves as a tax on physical capital accumulation; and an economic mechanism that inhibits adjustments that would correct the misallocation. Bear Traps explains why Soviet legacies still constrain economic growth and outlines a feasible policy path that could remove these obstacles. The most popular proposals for Russian economic reform today — diversification, innovation, modernization — are misguided. They are based on a faulty diagnosis of the country’s ills, because they ignore a simple reality: Russia’s capital, both physical and human, is systematically overvalued, owing to a failure to account for the handicap imposed by geography and location. Part of the handicap is an unavoidable consequence of Russia’s size and cold climate. But another part is self-inflicted. Soviet policies placed far too much economic activity in cold, remote locations. Specific institutions in today’s Russia, notably its federalist structure, help preserve the Soviet spatial legacy. As a result, capital remains handicapped. Investments made to compensate for the handicaps of cold and distance should properly be treated as costs. Instead, they are considered net additions to capital. When returns to what appear to be large quantities of physical and human capital fail to satisfy expectations, the blame naturally goes to poor institutions, corruption, backward technology, and so on. Policy proceeds along the wrong path, with costly programs that can end up doing more damage than good. The authors insist that the goal should be to seek to remove the handicaps rather than to spend to compensate for them. They discuss how Russia could develop a modernization program that would let the nation finally focus on its economic advantages, not its handicaps.

The Seventh Edition of Russian and Soviet Economic Performance and Structure offers students a balanced perspective in understanding the Soviet past and Russia's present and future. With thorough coverage of the Soviet legacy, the transition, and the contemporary Russian economy, the text allows instruction from either ahistorical or contemporary perspective. *NEW! A major update of the critical economic issues in contemporary Russia at the dawn of the twenty-first century. *NEW! Increased coverage of the critical energy and agriculture sectors of key issues such as privatization where more and better evidence is now available. *NEW! An assessment of a full ten years of Russian economic performance under transition, including increased emphasis on the basic issues in transition and the important differences between Russia and other transition economies. *NEW! Updated terminology for easier reference by students. *Allows flexible teaching choices. New contemporary focus still allows instructors the flexibility to teach the course from a historical perspective. *Authors are established, active scholars who are widely known and well respected in the field of comparative economic syste

By 1999, Russia's economy was growing at almost 7% per year, and by 2008 reached 11th place in the world GDP rankings. Russia is now the world's second largest producer and exporter of oil, the largest producer and exporter of natural gas, and as a result has the third largest stock of foreign exchange reserves in the world, behind only China and Japan. But while this impressive economic growth has raised the average standard of living and put a number of wealthy Russians on the Forbes billionaires list, it has failed to solve the country's deep economic and social problems inherited from the Soviet times. Russia continues to suffer from a distorted economic structure, with its low labor productivity, heavy reliance on natural resource extraction, low life expectancy, high income inequality, and weak institutions. While a voluminous amount of literature has studied various individual aspects of the Russian economy, in the West there has been no comprehensive and systematic analysis of the socialist legacies, the current state, and future prospects of the Russian economy gathered in one book. The Oxford Handbook of the Russian Economy fills this gap by offering a broad range of topics written by the best Western and Russian scholars of the Russian economy. While the book's focus is the current state of the Russian economy, the first part of the book also addresses the legacy of the Soviet command economy and offers an analysis of institutional aspects of Russia's economic development over the last decade. The second part covers the most important sectors of the economy. The third part examines the economic challenges created by the gigantic magnitude of regional, geographic, ethnic, religious and linguistic diversity of Russia. The fourth part covers various social issues, including health, education, and demographic challenges. It will also examine broad policy challenges, including the tax system, rule of law, as well as corruption and the underground economy. Michael Alexeev and Shlomo Weber provide for the first time in one volume a complete, well-rounded, and essential look at the complex, emerging Russian economy.

Peter Wehrheim analyses the economy-wide effects of various trade and economic policies that have affected Russia's transition from a planned economy to a market economy in the past decade.