Money and banks in transition economies: the case of Uzbekistan.

Using the Post Keynesian approach, this study investigates the evolution of money and banks in transition economies in general, and in Uzbekistan in particular. By emphasising the role and importance of institutions in the economic process, the study argues that the evolution of money and banks during transition is a necessarily complex and time-consuming process. By analysing functional differences of money and banks and their evolutionary path in a market economy and in a centrally planned economy, the study suggests that, to reach necessary maturity and to become effective financial intermediaries and creators of new credit, transition banks have to go through several evolutionary phases. This is explained by the historical distinction between cash money and non-cash money, underdeveloped banking habits of the general public, slow and inefficient payments system inherited from the past, and more importantly hyperinflation during the early years of transition. Taking Uzbekistan as a case study, we also argue that the speed of this evolution can vary from country to country depending upon a number of important factors such as the number of years spent under central planning, the degree of centralisation of the economy, the starting date of reforms and their consistency, proximity to large and dynamically functioning market economies, and more importantly entry of foreign banks. Uzbekistan was very slow in reforming its economy and therefore is still far from developing into a market economy. In spite of some positive changes undertaken during the transition period such as establishment of a two-tier banking sector, formal abolition of the distinction between cash money and non-cash money, modernisation of the payments system, controlling inflation, and the establishment of the deposit insurance fund, the banking sector failed to regain the general public’s confidence. We argue that weak development of money and banking in Uzbekistan is largely explained by the current structural organisation of the economy and some sector-specific issues associated with it. The implication of these arguments is that, in order to capture the objective reality of the situation, theories must be developed in particular ways in the context of history, institutional factors, and policy frameworks

Keeping up with revolutions: evolution of higher education in Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan's higher education system has undergone some dramatic changes in the past century, evolving from largely traditional religious colleges to fully state-funded communist-atheist institutions. Since the end of the communist administration and subsequent market-oriented reforms, the institutions of higher education (IHE) in Uzbekistan have had to reinvent and reform themselves again, as the demand for different kind of education increased. This paper puts the current changes and trends in IHEs into an historical perspective and highlights some important effects of the market reforms on the educational scene

Law, Social Norms and Welfare as Means of Public Administration: Case Study of Mahalla Institutions in Uzbekistan

Despite numerous challenges, since its independence, Uzbekistan, with the exception of the May 2005 Andijan events, has enjoyed extraordinary political stability and not recorded any considerable cases of interethnic or interfaith conflict, regime change or civil war, whereas neighboring Kyrgyzstan, labeled an “island of democracy” by the Western world, has experienced numerous conflicts and chaos, ranging from “color revolutions” to ethnic conflict. However, for understanding Uzbekistan’s ability to cope with internal and external challenges, little recourse is made to the post-independence discourse on public administration known as “mahalla reforms”. In spite of the significant existing body of literature on the mahalla, there has been little systematic scholarly investigation of the role of mahalla in maintaining political stability and security in Uzbekistan. Previous studies did not provide an account of how the law, social norms and welfare come to interplay in the mahalla system and how this influences the public administration developments in Uzbekistan. This paper begins to redress this lacuna by analyzing public-administration reforms in post-independence Uzbekistan, namely mahalla reforms, with an effort to show how political and social stability is established through mahalla, and to what extent those reforms have affected the position of individuals vis-à-vis the public-administration system. In undertaking this task, the paper employs three theoretical concepts: the theory of norms, the welfare-pentagon model and the theory of social control. In this paper, I argue that public-administration reforms since 1991 have transformed mahalla into a comprehensive system of social control; and therefore, mahalla can be places of democratic involvement or sites of authoritarianism in Uzbekistan

A Stages Approach to Banking Development in Transition Economies

Credit shortages are widely thought to explain the output contraction in former Soviet Union (FSU) countries during the 1990s. It is argued here that these shortages were the result of an ahistorical approach to policymaking which ignored the time needed for the establishment and further development of money, banking, and nonbanking financial institutions. Starting from Chick’s stages-of-banking-development framework, we examine the experience of the FSU economies in transition from central planning. We then develop a fivephase framework to characterize the process of banking development required for them to reach stage two of Chick’s framework, where bank liabilities are accepted as money

Evolution of Mass Public Buildings and Complexes Problems of Modern Spatial Organization in Bukhara

The article presents the results of theoretical research - the definition of the main trends and architectural techniques that underlie the construction of the public space of modern shopping complexes in Bukhara and the development of recommendations for their practical implementation