Seven lessons from post-communist transition

The 20th anniversary of the beginning of economic reforms in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union provides a good opportunity to comment on the lessons of transition says Andrei Shleifer, a Professor of Economics at Harvard University. He made a top seven list, which might be useful to future reformers. Some of the issues are relevant not only for communist countries; the problems of heavily statist economies are similar.Post-communist transition and development issues, Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia, economic reforms

Will the Sovereign Debt Market Survive?

Economic theory and evidence from a variety of debt markets shed light on current reform proposals concerning emerging market debt. Debt markets, including the U.S. municipal bond market, generally function best when the rights of creditors are protected most effectively. Since current IMF reform proposals significantly emasculate creditor rights, they are likely to have an adverse effect on the flow of new funds to sovereign borrowers.

Efficient Regulation

Regulation of economic activity is ubiquitous around the world, yet standard theories predict it should be rather uncommon. I argue that the ubiquity of regulation is explained not so much by the failure of markets, or by asymmetric information, as by the failure of courts to solve contract and tort disputes cheaply, predictably, and impartially. The approach accounts for the ubiquity of regulation, for its growth over time, as well as for the fact that contracts themselves are heavily regulated. It also makes predictions, both across activities and across jurisdictions, for the efficiency of regulation and litigation as strategies of enforcing efficient conduct.

Russia: An Abnormal Country

Andrei Shleifer and Daniel Treisman recently rendered a summary verdict on the post Soviet Russian transition experience finding that the Federation had become a normal country with the west's assistance, and predicting that it would liberalize and develop further like other successful nations of its type. This essay demonstrates that they are mistaken on the first count, and are likely to be wrong on the second too. It shows factually, and on the norms elaborated by Pareto, Arrow and Bergson that Russia is an abnormal political economy unlikely to democratize, westernize or embrace free enterprise any time soonRussian economy; transition economics; comparative economic systems

Plan, siphoning and corruption in the Soviet command economy

This paper reconsiders Andrei Shleifer and Robert Vishny’s suggestion that a socialist industry will always prefer to cut both price and output relative to a market–clearing equilibrium in order to maximise bribe income. The evidence from recent archival studies of the Soviet economy does not support this conjecture. To understand the evidence we present an analytical framework within which a plan–setter and an effort–setter interact, subject to a hard resource constraint, to determine real output and hidden inflation simultaneously. We find that managers who use resources gained corruptly were enabled to produce more real output with less hidden inflation and fulfil the plan more honestly as a result. We find clear rationales for plan–setters to have tolerated corruption and siphoning while maintaining plan tension, and we associate reduced plan tension in the 1970s with the spread of disloyal behaviours

The New Comparative Economics

In recent years, comparative economics experienced a revival, with a new focus on comparing capitalist economies. The theme of the new research is that institutions exert a profound influence on economic development. We argue that, to understand capitalist institutions, one needs to understand the basic tradeoff between the costs of disorder and those of dictatorship. We then apply this logic to study the structure of efficient institutions, the consequences of colonial transplantation, and the politics of institutional choice.

The New Comparative Economics

In recent years, comparative economics experienced a revival, with a new focus on comparing capitalist economies. The theme of the new research is that institutions exert a profound influence on economic development. We argue that, to understand capitalist institutions, one needs to understand the basic tradeoff between the costs of disorder and those of dictatorship. We then apply this logic to study the structure of efficient institutions, the consequences of colonial transplantation, and the politics of institutional choice.