The Logic of Economic Reform in Russia

The Logic of Economic Reform in Russia
Author: Jerry F. Hough
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2004-06-23
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780815798590

This book examines the failure of economic reform in Russia since 1991, when Boris Yeltsin proclaimed his commitment to economic stabilization, privatization, and price liberalization. Optimism over Russia¡¯s market reforms vanished with the crash of August 1998, when the ruble lost over 70 percent of its value and banks defaulted on their debts and forward currency contracts. Contrary to Yeltsin¡¯s reform promises, the Russian economy of the 1990s more closely resembled a Soviet model than a market-driven one. The Logic of Economic Reform in Russia illuminates the general problems of establishing market economies in settings where the institutional system to support the market has not had decades to develop. Suggesting that corruption may be associated with growth in the early stages of capitalism, Jerry F. Hough argues that the disappointing results of Yeltsin¡¯s reform efforts were not the product of Russian culture or history, but the logical consequences of rational men responding to the incentive system created by economic reform.

The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China

The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China
Author: Susan L. Shirk
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 411
Release: 2023-04-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520912217

In the past decade, China was able to carry out economic reform without political reform, while the Soviet Union attempted the opposite strategy. How did China succeed at economic market reform without changing communist rule? Susan Shirk shows that Chinese communist political institutions are more flexible and less centralized than their Soviet counterparts were. Shirk pioneers a rational choice institutional approach to analyze policy-making in a non-democratic authoritarian country and to explain the history of Chinese market reforms from 1979 to the present. Drawing on extensive interviews with high-level Chinese officials, she pieces together detailed histories of economic reform policy decisions and shows how the political logic of Chinese communist institutions shaped those decisions. Combining theoretical ambition with the flavor of on-the-ground policy-making in Beijing, this book is a major contribution to the study of reform in China and other communist countries. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1994. In the past decade, China was able to carry out economic reform without political reform, while the Soviet Union attempted the opposite strategy. How did China succeed at economic market reform without changing communist rule? Susan Shirk shows that Chine

Russia's Virtual Economy

Russia's Virtual Economy
Author: Clifford G. Gaddy
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2002
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780815731115

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.

The Oxford Handbook of the Russian Economy

The Oxford Handbook of the Russian Economy
Author: Michael Alexeev
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 864
Release: 2013-07-18
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0199759928

This Handbook is the most comprehensive up-to-date study of the Russian economy available. Russian and western authors analyze the current economic situation, trace the impact of Soviet legacies and of post-Soviet transition policies, examine the main social challenges, and propose directions for reforms.

Democratization and Revolution in the USSR, 1985-91

Democratization and Revolution in the USSR, 1985-91
Author: Jerry F. Hough
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages: 572
Release: 1997-05-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780815791492

Democratization and Revolution in the USSR, 1985-91 presents a strikingly new view of the Gorbachev era and the reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union. Written by one of America's most distinguished specialists on the former Soviet Union, this is the first comprehensive overview of the Gorbachev period and describes it as a real revolution, not mere "reform." According to Hough, despite Mikhail Gorbachev's talk of a regulated market, he never understood that a market must be created on a solid institutional and legal base. He was determined to use democratization to free himself from party control, but he saw democracy as a way of achieving near- universal consensus, not a mechanism for forcing through difficult choices. The many memoirs that have become available in the last few years, including those of Gorbachev himself, show that Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov and the "bureaucrats" in his government actually were the serious economic reformers in the leadership. Gorbachev opposed the key transitional steps at every stage and was far closer to the assumptions of shock therapy than he or his opponents ever recognized. Hough explains that Gorbachev was not alone in thinking that the destruction of old institutions was enough to unleash a market. Westerners also talked of leaping a chasm in a single jump as if democratic and market institutions existed pre-created on the other side. But, precisely because Gorbachev (and later Boris Yeltsin) was encouraged in all his worst mistakes by Western advice, his failure has crucial implications for Western thinking about the process of democratization and marketization. This unprecedented book explores those implications in depth. Selected by Choice as an Outstanding Book for 1998

How China Escaped Shock Therapy

How China Escaped Shock Therapy
Author: Isabella M. Weber
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2021-05-26
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 042995395X

China has become deeply integrated into the world economy. Yet, gradual marketization has facilitated the country’s rise without leading to its wholesale assimilation to global neoliberalism. This book uncovers the fierce contest about economic reforms that shaped China’s path. In the first post-Mao decade, China’s reformers were sharply divided. They agreed that China had to reform its economic system and move toward more marketization—but struggled over how to go about it. Should China destroy the core of the socialist system through shock therapy, or should it use the institutions of the planned economy as market creators? With hindsight, the historical record proves the high stakes behind the question: China embarked on an economic expansion commonly described as unprecedented in scope and pace, whereas Russia’s economy collapsed under shock therapy. Based on extensive research, including interviews with key Chinese and international participants and World Bank officials as well as insights gleaned from unpublished documents, the book charts the debate that ultimately enabled China to follow a path to gradual reindustrialization. Beyond shedding light on the crossroads of the 1980s, it reveals the intellectual foundations of state-market relations in reform-era China through a longue durée lens. Overall, the book delivers an original perspective on China’s economic model and its continuing contestations from within and from without.

The Political Economy of Soviet Socialism: the Formative Years, 1918-1928

The Political Economy of Soviet Socialism: the Formative Years, 1918-1928
Author: Peter J. Boettke
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2013-03-14
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 940173433X

This book presents a narrative of one of the more interesting utopian experiments in comparative political and economic history: the first decade of the Soviet experience with socialism (1918-1928). Though historical and textual analysis, the book’s goal is to render this experience intelligible, to get at the meaning of the Soviet experience with socialism for comparative political economy today. The book examines the texts of Lenin, Bukharin, and other revolutionaries, as well as the interpretations of contemporary historians of the revolution and the writings of more recent interpreters of Soviet political and economic history. Arguing that the first three years of the Bolshevik regime (1918-1921) constitute an attempt to carry out the Marxian ideal of comprehensive central planning, and that the disastrous results, which all commentators agree occurred, were the inevitable outcome of this Marxian ideal coming into conflict with the economic reality of the coordination problem that all economic systems face, the book draws clear conclusions and elucidates the air of mystery that often surrounds the subject. Offering a radical challenge to contemporary comparative political economy at the level of high theory, applied research, and public policy, this book is appropriate for students and scholars interested in Marxism, economic history, political economy, and Austrian economics.

Reforming the Unreformable

Reforming the Unreformable
Author: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 211
Release: 2014-08-29
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0262526875

A report on development economics in action, by a crucial player in Nigeria's recent reforms. Corrupt, mismanaged, and seemingly hopeless: that's how the international community viewed Nigeria in the early 2000s. Then Nigeria implemented a sweeping set of economic and political changes and began to reform the unreformable. This book tells the story of how a dedicated and politically committed team of reformers set out to fix a series of broken institutions, and in the process repositioned Nigeria's economy in ways that helped create a more diversified springboard for steadier long-term growth. The author, Harvard- and MIT-trained economist Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, currently Nigeria's Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance and formerly Managing Director of the World Bank, played a crucial part in her country's economic reforms. In Nigeria's Debt Management Office, and later as Minister of Finance, she spearheaded negotiations with the Paris Club that led to the wiping out of $30 billion of Nigeria's external debt, 60 percent of which was outright cancellation. Reforming the Unreformable offers an insider's view of those debt negotiations; it also details the fight against corruption and the struggle to implement a series of macroeconomic and structural reforms. This story of development economics in action, written from the front lines of economic reform in Africa, offers a unique perspective on the complex and uncertain global economic environment.

How Markets Fail

How Markets Fail
Author: Cassidy John
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 485
Release: 2013-01-31
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0141939427

How did we get to where we are? John Cassidy shows that the roots of our most recent financial failure lie not with individuals, but with an idea - the idea that markets are inherently rational. He gives us the big picture behind the financial headlines, tracing the rise and fall of free market ideology from Adam Smith to Milton Friedman and Alan Greenspan. Full of wit, sense and, above all, a deeper understanding, How Markets Fail argues for the end of 'utopian' economics, and the beginning of a pragmatic, reality-based way of thinking. A very good history of economic thought Economist How Markets Fail offers a brilliant intellectual framework . . . fine work New York Times An essential, grittily intellectual, yet compelling guide to the financial debacle of 2009 Geordie Greig, Evening Standard A powerful argument . . . Cassidy makes a compelling case that a return to hands-off economics would be a disaster BusinessWeek This book is a well constructed, thoughtful and cogent account of how capitalism evolved to its current form Telegraph Books of the Year recommendation John Cassidy ... describe[s] that mix of insight and madness that brought the world's system to its knees FT, Book of the Year recommendation Anyone who enjoys a good read can safely embark on this tour with Cassidy as their guide . . . Like his colleague Malcolm Gladwell [at the New Yorker], Cassidy is able to lead us with beguiling lucidity through unfamiliar territory New Statesman John Cassidy has covered economics and finance at The New Yorker magazine since 1995, writing on topics ranging from Alan Greenspan to the Iraqi oil industry and English journalism. He is also now a Contributing Editor at Portfolio where he writes the monthly Economics column. Two of his articles have been nominated for National Magazine Awards: an essay on Karl Marx, which appeared in October, 1997, and an account of the death of the British weapons scientist David Kelly, which was published in December, 2003. He has previously written for Sunday Times in as well as the New York Post, where he edited the Business section and then served as the deputy editor. In 2002, Cassidy published his first book, Dot.Con. He lives in New York.