Realising the oil supply potential of the CIS: the impact of institutions and policies

This paper provides an overview of the political economy of oil in the CIS. It briefly situates the region’s oil sector potential in the global context, before analysing the structural features of the oil sectors by country. It examines the ways in which CIS oil industries have been organised and governed since 1991, as well as questions of transport infrastructure and export routes, which are especially critical for Central Asia’s landlocked producers. The paper finally considers the causes and likely consequences of the recent shift towards greater state ownership and control in Russia and Kazakhstan, the region’s most important oil producers. The paper’s central argument is that these changes have increased the risk that the full hydrocarbon potential of the CIS may not be developed in a timely and economically efficient way

Sustaining Growth in a Resource-Based Economy: The Main Issues and the Specific Case of Russia

This paper argues that the challenges posed by resource dependence, which include an increased vulnerability to external shocks, the risk of Dutch disease and the risk of development specific institutional pathologies, can be overcome, or at least very substaintially mitigated, if accompanied by the right economic policies.Russia, resource abundance, dutch disease, economic growth

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

Russia's gas sector: the endless wait for reform?

The gas industry is perhaps Russia’s least reformed major sector. Prices are regulated, exports are monopolised and the domestic market is dominated by a state-controlled, vertically integrated monopolist, OAO Gazprom. Gazprom combines commercial and regulatory functions, and maintains tight control over the sector’s infrastructure and over information flows within it. The sector as it is currently constituted is highly unlikely to be able to sustain sufficient output growth to satisfy both rising export commitments and domestic demand. There is significant potential for accelerating the growth of non-Gazprom production and making gas supply in Russia more competitive, but this will require fundamental reform. The proposals for reform advanced in the paper address two sets of issues. First, there is an urgent need to increase transparency in the sector and transfer many of the regulatory functions now performed by Gazprom to state bodies. Secondly, there is a longer-term need for a considerable degree of unbundling of Gazprom. In particular, it would be desirable to remove control of the sector’s transport infrastructure from the company and to revise the arrangements governing gas exports to non-CIS states, which are currently monopolised by Gazprom. At the same time, recent increases in domestic gas tariffs must continue until internal gas prices rise above full, long-term cost-recovery levels

Russian manufacturing and the threat of ‘Dutch disease’: a comparison of competitiveness developments in Russian and Ukrainian industry

This paper examines the development of Russian industry in comparison with that of Ukrainian industry during 1995–2004 in an effort to ascertain to what extent, if any, Russian manufacturing showed signs of succumbing to ‘Dutch disease’. Ukraine and Russia began the market transition with broadly similar institutions, industrial structures and levels of technology, and the economic reforms implemented in the two countries were also similar, although Ukraine was reckoned to lag behind Russia in many areas. The main difference between them is Russia’s far greater resource wealth. It follows that differences in industrial development since 1991 may to some degree be attributable to differences in initial natural resource endowments. In short, Ukraine could provide a rough approximation of how a resource-poor Russia might have developed over the transition

Have more strictly regulated banking systems fared better during the recent financial crisis?

We assess whether during the recent financial crisis banking systems in countries with more stringent prudential banking regulation have proved more stable. We find indicators of regulatory strength to be relatively well correlated with the extent to which countries have escaped damage during the recent crisis, as measured either by the degree of equity value destruction in the banking sector or by the fiscal cost of financial sector rescue.Prudential regulation; banking; stability; financial crisis; crisis cost; banking sector bail-out; banking share prices.

Variation der Variation oder Variante der Romanze? Zum zweiten Satz aus Mozarts Streichquintett Es-dur KV 614

Musik – Transfer – Kultur ist das Thema der Festschrift für Horst Weber, die damit die Forschungsinteressen des Jubilars sowie die Ausstrahlung und Bedeutung seiner eigenen Arbeiten spiegelt. In den Beiträgen des Bandes wird untersucht und dargestellt, auf welche Weise die Musik in Interaktion mit anderen kulturellen Erscheinungen tritt und dadurch als Form des kulturellen Handelns sichtbar wird. Einer der Schwerpunkte ist hierbei der Kulturtransfer, der durch Emigration von Musikerinnen und Musikern sowie anderer Kulturschaffender aus dem nationalsozialistischen Deutschland erzwungen wurde, doch wird auch die daran anknüpfende Problematik einer Remigration solcher Kulturschaffenden in die ehemalige Heimat nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg thematisiert. Music – transfer – culture is the theme of this Festschrift for Horst Weber, reflecting both his research interests and the transmission and significance of his work. The contributions investigate the ways in which music interacts with other cultural phenomena and thus becomes apparent as a form of cultural action. A particular focus is the cultural transfer forced by the emigration of musicians and other artists from Nazi Germany, but the related problem of such artists’ return to their former homeland after the Second World War is also a theme