Twenty Years Later and the Socialist Heritage is still Kicking: the Case of Russia

Only recently, 20 years after transition to a market system, has Russia regained a similar production level it had achieved on the eve of transition in 1991. This may sound surprising, given its low productivity under central planning which dropped even ltransition, institutions, Russia, economic growth, human capital, higher

Twenty years later and the socialist heritage is still kicking: The case of Russia

Only recently, 20 years after transition to a market system, has Russia regained a similar production level it had achieved on the eve of transition in 1991. This may sound surprising, given its low productivity under central planning which dropped even lower during the last decades, and the rather high level of human capital inherited from the old regime, considered by many as the main engine of growth. The explanation may lie in Russia's difficulties and failure to transform the institutional infrastructure of the old regime to one that would support a market system and a democratic society, the second essential engine of growth. The paper surveys the difficulties of the institutional transformation using the 'new institutional economics' literature, and based on a number of international comparative studies provides evidence of the deep institutional weakness of Russia. Given the very high 'cost of transition', the question is raised whether the socialist growth strategy (as such) paid off

The Russian city in transition - the first six years in ten Volga capitals

After studying the nature and variety of transition in 10 regional capitals of Russia, the authors observe that: 1) All cities have experienced radical changes in their institutions and economies - changes associated on the one hand with the abolition of central planning and the introduction of freer markets, and on the other hand with political decentralization and the introduction of local elections. 2) These changes have led to a wide diversity in economic and social outcomes, reflecting differences in the central government's (inequitable) economic relations with regions with regional as well as differing local and regional policies. Most northern cities adopted policies more consistent with the central government's support of free market reforms; most southern (Red Belt) cities pursued more cautious, protective policies. 3) City governments are using proactive economic policies, including interventions to save local industries. Such efforts highlight the dual nature of the Russian transition, characterized by a shift in power from central to local government as well s public to private enterprises. 4) A major difficulty facing Russian cities is the cost of subsidies to housing and utilities. Real estate in general constitutes a major expenditure category for local government rather than, as in most western cities, a major source of revenue. A transition in this area alone could revolutionize the finances and independence of Russian cities. 5) The jury is still out in what the right social and industrial policies were during the first years of reform. Ulyanovsk clearly lagged on market reforms, and Saratov represents a model of liberalization without institutional support. Both extremes have failed, but so far the social consequences of the Saratov model appear to be worse than those of the Ulyanovsk model. 6) With the credibility of Russia's federal government at an all-time low, foreign investors have no choice but to rely on the competence and reliability of local leaders, especially mayors and governors. They will be looking for evidence of accountability in the form of the rule of law, and transparency in the form of reliable public information. Information at the city level - often unavailable and not easily accessible - would be very useful in attracting local researchers to monitor progress (as a basis for accountability) and diagnose problems (as a basis for public policy debate and political decisions.Regional Governance,Banks&Banking Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies,Municipal Financial Management,Public Sector Management and Reform,Urban Governance and Management,Municipal Financial Management,Banks&Banking Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies,Public Sector Management and Reform

The Holographic Dictionary for Beta Functions of Multi-trace Coupling Constants

Field theories with weakly coupled holographic duals, such as large N gauge theories, have a natural separation of their operators into `single-trace operators' (dual to single-particle states) and `multi-trace operators' (dual to multi-particle states). There are examples of large N gauge theories where the beta functions of single-trace coupling constants all vanish, but marginal multi-trace coupling constants have non-vanishing beta functions that spoil conformal invariance (even when all multi-trace coupling constants vanish). The holographic dual of such theories should be a classical solution in anti-de Sitter space, in which the boundary conditions that correspond to the multi-trace coupling constants depend on the cutoff scale, in a way that spoils conformal invariance. We argue that this is realized through specific bulk coupling constants that lead to a running of the multi-trace coupling constants. This fills a missing entry in the holographic dictionary.Comment: 31 pages. v2: added references. v3: added references, JHEP versio

Transition in Regional Capitals along the Volga

transition russia local government fiscal decentralization

Service as a major source of growth in Russia and other former Soviet states

Private services could contribute greatly to economic growth in Russia and the other former Soviet states. The authors use econometric analysis to identify the gap between expected and actual levels of service activities in these countries and simulate the effect on GDP and employment of closing the gap. The gap is particularly wide for business and consumer services. Transport and publicly provided services are comparable to, or higher than, those in other countries. Traditionally, the Marxist doctrine of socialist economies has labeled services"nonproductive."And there is continuing evidence that national policies in these countries favor producers of goods over producers of services. In Russia, for example, there was until recently a 25 percent ceiling on trade margins for some products, and the enterprise profits tax is higher for producers of services than for producers of goods. Also, coefficients for real estate lease payments are sometimes higher for service firms. It will be important for Russia and the other former Soviet states to identify a policy agenda to facilitate the rapid expansion of services. The policy agenda should entail legal, economic, and institutional changes to eliminate the current bias against services, so that service firms can operate on a level playing field. It should also include proactive programs to stimulate a rapid increase in the level of service activity. Appropriate measures may include: (a) changes in the tax law, the regulatory framework, and other economic incentives; (b) government programs to accelerate private sector development and the privatization of government distribution and service activities; (c) training for enterprise employees to facilitate their transfer from production to service activities; (d) action to support the orderly development of input and output markets; (e) creation of a modern banking system that will use appropriate criteria to provide credit to service enterprises; and (f) consideration of service activities as priorities for international technical assistance and direct foreign investment.Governance Indicators,Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,ICT Policy and Strategies,Municipal Financial Management

The Thermal Free Energy in Large N Chern-Simons-Matter Theories

We compute the thermal free energy in large N U(N) Chern-Simons-matter theories with matter fields (scalars and/or fermions) in the fundamental representation, in the large temperature limit. We note that in these theories the eigenvalue distribution of the holonomy of the gauge field along the thermal circle does not localize even at very high temperatures, and this affects the computation significantly. We verify that our results are consistent with the conjectured dualities between Chern-Simons-matter theories with scalar fields and with fermion fields, as well as with the strong-weak coupling duality of the N=2 supersymmetric Chern-Simons-matter theory.Comment: 41 pages, 8 figures. v2: minor corrections, added references. v3: added pdfoutpu

NK Cell Receptor NKp46 Regulates Graft-versus-Host Disease

SummaryHematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is often the only curative treatment for a wide variety of hematologic malignancies. Donor selection in these diseases is crucial, given that transplanted cells can mediate not only the desired graft-versus-leukemia effect but also graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). Here, we demonstrate that in the absence of NKp46, a major killer receptor expressed by human and mouse natural killer (NK) cells, GVHD is greatly exacerbated, resulting in rapid mortality of the transplanted animals because of infection with commensal bacteria. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the exacerbated GVHD is the result of an altered ability of immune cells to respond to stimulation by immature dendritic cells. Because high and low expression of NKp46 on NK cells is observed in different individuals, our data indicate that choosing NKp46-high donors for the treatment of different hematologic malignancies might lead to better tumor eradication while minimizing GVHD

d=3 Bosonic Vector Models Coupled to Chern-Simons Gauge Theories

We study three dimensional O(N)_k and U(N)_k Chern-Simons theories coupled to a scalar field in the fundamental representation, in the large N limit. For infinite k this is just the singlet sector of the O(N) (U(N)) vector model, which is conjectured to be dual to Vasiliev's higher spin gravity theory on AdS_4. For large k and N we obtain a parity-breaking deformation of this theory, controlled by the 't Hooft coupling lambda = 4 \pi N / k. For infinite N we argue (and show explicitly at two-loop order) that the theories with finite lambda are conformally invariant, and also have an exactly marginal (\phi^2)^3 deformation. For large but finite N and small 't Hooft coupling lambda, we show that there is still a line of fixed points parameterized by the 't Hooft coupling lambda. We show that, at infinite N, the interacting non-parity-invariant theory with finite lambda has the same spectrum of primary operators as the free theory, consisting of an infinite tower of conserved higher-spin currents and a scalar operator with scaling dimension \Delta=1; however, the correlation functions of these operators do depend on lambda. Our results suggest that there should exist a family of higher spin gravity theories, parameterized by lambda, and continuously connected to Vasiliev's theory. For finite N the higher spin currents are not conserved.Comment: 34 pages, 29 figures. v2: added reference