115 research outputs found
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Shock Therapy and After: Prospects for Russian Reform
"In the third year of its transition to a functioning market
economy free from high inflation, Russia began its toughest phase
in 1994 under the Chernomyrdin government. The approval by the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) in March of the second tranche of
$1.5 billion signaled support for the economic program of the new
government. The subsequent adoption by the Duma (lower house of the
parliament) of the government's budget and the signing of the civil
accord by several parliamentary factions and industry groups marked
a step, albeit fragile, in the direction of national consensus.
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The Wage Arrears Crisis in Russia
In this paper, we propose an analytical framework suggesting that wage nonpayment in the Russian state sector and privatized factories, which resulted from acute cash flow problems in both, reflected an implicit contract among the government, managers and labor against worker layoff. We analyze the impact of wage nonpayment on workers grouped by demographic features, occupation and job location on the basis of a panel data set covering the years 1994 to 1996. Based on a multivariate specification that incorporates these features, we find that the frequency and amount of wage withholding increased sharply in 1996. While wages were denied less frequently and in lower amounts to low paid workers by age, occupation and location, this pattern(for which we find a correlation between the frequency of wage nonpayment and wage level at the regional level), needs to be confirmed with further statistical tests. While the practice of wage nonpayment tended to push families into poverty and increase their expectation of living in poverty in the immediate future, it also raised the likelihood of workers holding additional jobs and undertaking informal paid activity. At the same time, the frequency and magnitude of barter payments to workers in our sample were not sufficient to exercise a significant effect in mitigating the adverse effects of wage arrears
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To Pay or Not to Pay: Managerial Decision Making and Wage Withholding in Russia
In this paper we investigate the decisions of Russian managers in distributing wage nonpayment in Russia during the 1994-96 period. Using a longitudinal survey of households, we identify a pattern of wage arrears across regions and industries which suggests that managers allocated nonpayment among workers so as to minimize the real wage declines experienced by higher productivity workers. This finding suggests that post-Soviet managers were responding more strongly to market incentives than to equity considerations in their wage withholding allocation decisions
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Socialism and Indian Economic Policy
This paper examines the interaction of socialist ideas and doctrines with Indian economic policy-making in the last three decades. It concludes with an analysis of the differences between ex-ante aspirations and the ex-post outcomes in regard to these socialist objectives
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Three Alternative Concepts of Foreign Exchange Difficulties in Centrally Planned Economies
This article outlines three alternative concepts of foreign exchange difficulties in centrally planned economies
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Discovering Russia
While I began my discovery of Russia with love for Russian literature and humor, I have deliberately avoided converting it into a sentimental journey. From early on, I had decided to handle Soviet and Russian policy issues rigorously and empirically by applying appropriate models to the available data and tracking the model results with the help of the fast advancing computational procedures
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In Celebration of Jagdish Bhagwati's 70th Birthday, August 5, 2005: Padma Desai's Comments
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