Original Sin, Good Works, and Property Rights in Russia: Evidence From a Survey Experiment

Are property rights obtained through legally dubious means forever tainted with original sin or can rightholders make their ill-gotten gains legitimate by doing good works?2 This is a critical question for developing countries (and Russia in particular) where privatization is often opaque and businesspeople may receive property, but remain unwilling to use it productively due to concerns about the vulnerability of their rights to political challenge. Using a survey of 660 businesspeople conducted in Russia in February 2005, I find that the original sin of an illegal privatization is difficult to expunge. Businesspeople, however, can improve the perceived legitimacy of property rights by doing good works, such as investing in the firm and by providing public goods for the region. Finally, managers that provide public goods for their region are more likely to invest in their firms than those who did not. The finding that public goods providers invest at higher rates is at odds with standard economic logic, but fits well with the more political view of property rights developed here. These findings have implications for political economy and contemporary Russia.Property Rights, Transition, Rule of Law, Privatization

After the Big Bang? Obstacles to the emergence of the rule of law in post-communist societies

With the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in 1989-91, many economic reformers supported"Big Bang"privatization-the rapid transfer of state-owned enterprises to private individuals. It was hoped that Big Bang privatization would create the conditions for a demand-led evolution of legal institutions. But there was no theory to explain how this process of institutional evolution, including a legal framework for the protection of investors, would occur and, in fact, it has not yet occurred in Russia, in other former Soviet Union countries, in the Czech Republic, and elsewhere. A central reason for that, according to many scholars, is the weakness of the political demand for the rule of law. To shed light on this puzzle, the authors consider a model where the conditions for the emergence of the rule of law might be interpreted as highly favorable. Individuals with control rights over privatized assets can collectively bring about the rule of law simply by voting for it. These individuals are concerned with the wealth they can obtain from the privatized assets, and have two alternative strategies: building value and stripping assets. Building value under the rule of law yields higher benefits to a majority than stripping assets under no rule of law. But uncertainty about when the rule of law will be established may lead some individuals to choose an economic strategy-stripping assets, including converting corporate assets to private use-that gives them an interest in postponing the establishment of the rule of law. And therefore in the succeeding period, the rule of law may again not be in place, and so again individuals may strip assets. If they do, some of them may again have an interest in postponing the establishment of the rule of law. And so a weak demand for the rule of law can persist. The contribution of the paper is to show that the view that once stripping has occurred, the strippers will say"enough"and by supporting the rule of law seek public protection of their gains, is flawed. By abstracting from the obvious problem that strippers who obtain great wealth can buy special favored treatment from the state, the model highlights two less obvious flaws in the optimistic view about the Big Bang: First, that the asset-strippers can remove the assets from exposure to further stealing, and in that case they do not care about public protection for their gains. And second, that the perceived justice of a system is important to gaining the cooperation of those involved in the process of producing the rule of law (judges, regulators, jurors, potential offenders). Accordingly, state protection of asset strippers may be infeasible, even under an ostensible rule of law. Knowing this, strippers will be less supportive of the rule of law. The model makes one further point: what is at issue is how fast the rule of law will emerge. The presumption of the Big Bang strategy was that the faster state property was turned over to private hands, the faster a true market economy, including the rule of law, would be established. The analysis shows that, even if eventually a rule of law is established, the Big Bang may put into play forces that delay the establishment of the rule of law. The tortoise once again may beat the hare! Finally, the authors analyze the impact of certain policies, such as the particular structure of privatization and monetary policy. Policies that enhance the returns to investment and wealth creation rather than assetstripping not only serve to strengthen the economy in the short run, but enhance political support for the rule of law and thus put it in a position for stronger long-term growth.Corruption&Anitcorruption Law,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Legal Products,Labor Policies,Legal Products,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Corruption&Anitcorruption Law,Judicial System Reform

Rahvusvaheliste lepingutel põhinev omandiõiguste kaitse konstitutsiooniliste piirangutega: kaasaegse Venemaa juhtum

Väitekirja elektrooniline versioon ei sisalda publikatsiooneVäitekirjas hinnatakse rahvusvaheliste lepingute täitmist Venemaa poolt ja Venemaa käsitust rahvusvahelise õiguse vahekorrast oma riigisisese õigusega eelkõige omandiõiguse valguses. Lisaks uuritakse Venemaa ning Euroopa Nõukogu ja teiste rahvusvaheliste organisatsioonide suhteid läbi aastate ning nende rahvusvaheliste organisatsioonide ning rahvusvaheliste lepingutega liitumise mõju sellele, kuidas Venemaa teostab rahvusvahelist õigust. Täpsemalt keskendutakse väitekirjas omandiõigusele Venemaa õiguskorras ning hinnatakse selle kooskõla rahvusvahelise õiguse normidega. Viimastel aastatel on ilmnenud mitmeid põhimõttelisi probleeme seoses rahvusvaheliste lepingute täitmisega Venemaa poolt. Seda küsimust ei saa käsitleda mustvalgelt üksnes selle põhjal, kas Euroopa Inimõiguste Kohtu otsuseid Venemaa õigussüsteemis täidetakse või mitte. Arvesse on vaja võtta suuremat pilti, sealhulgas Venemaa ajalugu ja eriti lähiminevikku pärast Nõukogude Liidu lagunemist. Sellel, miks Venemaa ei täida rahvusvahelisi lepinguid, on palju erinevaid põhjuseid, muuhulgas Nõukogude Liidu järgsel Venemaal omandiõiguse kontseptsiooni väljatöötamisega seotud probleemid ning keeruline erastamise protsess 1990ndatel. Kui inimõiguste mõistet käsitada teatud laadi õigussiirdena, vähemalt eelnenud Nõukogude perioodiga võrreldes, siis on selge, et selle ülevõtmine Venemaa õigussüsteemi ei ole läinud nii ladusalt, kui Venemaa Euroopa inimõiguste konventsiooniga ühinemise ajal eeldati. Kui uurida omandiõiguse kaitset Venemaal, ilmneb selles hulk puudujääke. Nagu käesoleva väitekirja neli artiklit näitasid, on omandiõiguse aluseks eelkõige õigusriigi põhimõte (rule of law), eriti nii riigisiseste kui rahvusvaheliste õigusnormide austamine. Väitekirjast nähtub, et kuna Venemaal õigusnorme ei austata, ei pruugi praegu kehtivad regulatsioonid Venemaal omandiõigust (nii, nagu need on tagatud Euroopa inimõiguste konventsiooniga) piisavalt tõhusalt kaitsta.This thesis assesses Russia's compliance with international treaties and its understanding of the role of international law concerning Russian domestic law with a focus on property rights. Moreover, this dissertation delves into Russia's relationship over the years with the Council of Europe and other international organizations and how Russia's membership in such international organizations or treaties reflects its practice of international law. In particular, the focus of this thesis is on property rights and how these come into line with international law standards. When considering Russia's compliance with international treaties, it becomes clear that recent years have revealed several fundamental issues. Paradoxically, this cannot only be looked at as a black and white matter, which could easily be translated into implementation or non-implementation of decisions of the European Court of Human Rights in the Russian domestic legal system. Here, a broader picture must be drawn, including Russia's history and especially Russia's more recent past after the fall of the Soviet Union. Several factors underlie Russia´s inability to comply with international standards, inter alia the problems related to the development of the concept of property rights in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union and the difficult privatization process during 1990s. If seen as a legal transplant of sorts, the concept of human rights, at least compared to the earlier Soviet period, is not as easily implemented in the Russian legal system as expected when Russia signed the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR). An examination of the protection of property rights in Russia uncovers many flaws. As demonstrated by the four articles in this dissertation, substantive property rights need the rule of law and respect for formal legal rules (nationally and internationally) as a basis. This thesis suggests that since laws are not being respected, the current regulations may not be effective enough to protect property rights (as guaranteed in the ECHR) in Russia.https://www.ester.ee/record=b545989

Economic growth in the post-socialist Russian Federation after 1991: The role of Institutions

The paper emphasizes the transition in Russia and the role institutions played before and during the process. In Russia, a big bang approach was applied. That is to say, transition was conducted all of a sudden, omitting important underlying reforms. This practice should function as a shock therapy. Hence, the approach should leave no other chance than an abrupt adaption to the new free-market rules. These rules would then lead to fast economic growth and development, as they did in other places. However, since Russian GDP per capita and thereby living standards deteriorated dramatically in the years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the plan did not work. At any rate, since then Russian economic indicators recovered and partly achieved their pre-1991 levels at the end of the last decade. The paper depicts Russia's reform efforts and the subsequent developments. The close ties among the political elite, the banking sector and the old nomenklatura are demonstrated. The patrimonial system that persisted for centuries is still observable at the state level. At any rate, Russia can neither evade its historical and institutional development path nor its societal structures that are based on networks and nepotism. Russia's systemic lack of the rule of law and therewith of secure property, the character of the Russian political system with the patriarch as the head of state and the resulting necessity of corruption and bribes inhibit the realization of its full growth potential. --country studies,economic systems,formerly centrally planned economies,growth,institutions,transition economies

Economic growth in the post-socialist Russian Federation after 1991 : the role of institutions

The paper emphasizes the transition in Russia and the role institutions played before and during the process. In Russia, a ?big bang? approach was applied. That is to say, transition was conducted all of a sudden, omitting important underlying reforms. This practice should function as a shock therapy. Hence, the approach should leave no other chance than an abrupt adaption to the new free-market rules. These rules would then lead to fast economic growth and development, as they did in other places. However, since Russian GDP per capita and thereby living standards deteriorated dramatically in the years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the plan did not work. At any rate, since then Russian economic indicators recovered and partly achieved their pre-1991 levels at the end of the last decade. The paper depicts Russia?s reform efforts and the subsequent developments. The close ties among the political elite, the banking sector and the old nomenklatura are demonstrated. The patrimonial system that persisted for centuries is still observable at the state level. At any rate, Russia can neither evade its historical and institutional development path nor its societal structures that are based on networks and nepotism. Russia?s systemic lack of the rule of law and therewith of secure property, the character of the Russian political system with the patriarch as the head of state and the resulting necessity of corruption and bribes inhibit the realization of its full growth potential

Economic growth in the post-socialist Russian Federation after 1991 : the role of institutions

The paper emphasizes the transition in Russia and the role institutions played before and during the process. In Russia, a ?big bang? approach was applied. That is to say, transition was conducted all of a sudden, omitting important underlying reforms. This practice should function as a shock therapy. Hence, the approach should leave no other chance than an abrupt adaption to the new free-market rules. These rules would then lead to fast economic growth and development, as they did in other places. However, since Russian GDP per capita and thereby living standards deteriorated dramatically in the years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the plan did not work. At any rate, since then Russian economic indicators recovered and partly achieved their pre-1991 levels at the end of the last decade. The paper depicts Russia?s reform efforts and the subsequent developments. The close ties among the political elite, the banking sector and the old nomenklatura are demonstrated. The patrimonial system that persisted for centuries is still observable at the state level. At any rate, Russia can neither evade its historical and institutional development path nor its societal structures that are based on networks and nepotism. Russia?s systemic lack of the rule of law and therewith of secure property, the character of the Russian political system with the patriarch as the head of state and the resulting necessity of corruption and bribes inhibit the realization of its full growth potential

Условия использования судебных актов для машинного обучения (на примере отдельных решений о защите права собственности)

The subject of the article is some judicial acts on cases concerning protection of private property issued in Russia in recent years in the context of changes in the procedural legislation and legislation on the judicial system. The purpose of this article is to discover whether the current Russian judicial decisions may serve as input data for a machine learning algorithm in future. The main results, scope of application. The article presents an analysis of the changes in the Russian procedural law and in the regulation of the national judicial system in the recent years, which form new trends in judicial practice, according to the latest cases for the protection of private property in the courts. The author makes an analysis of the effectiveness of justice in providing recourse to private property violations in Russia. It is discovered whether the judicial protection has been substantially improved, following the promises of the Russian government. The article argues that these trends in judicial practice will negatively affect the automation of justice in the context of the nationwide digitalization of justice Such digitalization requires setting guidelines for the automated judicial decisions followed by the automated delivery of judicial documents. The methodology combines legal interpretation of judicial acts and Russian legislation comparative research, foresight and critical approach based on structured analysis, induction and deduction. Conclusions. There is a systemic deficiency in protecting private property in Russia, since neither the rules of civil and administrative proceedings, nor the constitutional control tools provide adequate protection on the matter. The recent relocation of the Constitutional Court of Russia from Moscow to St. Petersburg did not promote the judicial independence of the Court. On the contrary, the Constitutional Court, through formal excuses refrains from processing complaints on violation of private property rights and on the inefficiency of judicial procedures. The recent merger of the Supreme Arbitration Court of Russia and the Supreme Court of Russia has contributed to the uniformity of judicial practice. It violated the rights the owners of the shared premises in apartment buildings, but favored the beneficiaries of the management companies, which breach the owners' rights.Judicial acts studied in this article prove their ineffectiveness in contributing to the quality machine learning for artificial intelligence required for the transition to automatic generation of blueprints and templates of court decisions. Analysis of judicial acts allows to conclude that they cannot serve now as a basis for machine learning of artificial intelligence. They cannot be systematized in databases even by the criterion of the law norms applied by the plaintiffs, since the courts evade the procedural obligation to explain why they reject the law norms that serve as the basis for a lawsuit or complaint, and apply completely different ones. These circumstances require the immediate response from the state authorities, including finding efficient ways to provide sustainable development of justice, i.e. ensuring the Rule of Law and access to courts, since otherwise the digitization of justice will lead to the automation of arbitrariness. На примере судебных дел о защите частной собственности анализируются результаты преобразований в процессуальном законодательстве и законодательстве о судебной системе последних лет, которые формируют тренды судебной практики. В статье на примере разрешения конкретных дел показывается, как эти тренды повлияют на автоматизацию правосудия. Анализ судебных актов позволил сделать вывод, что в настоящее время они не могут служить основой для машинного обучения искусственного интеллекта. Они не могут быть систематизированы в базах данных даже по критерию применения заявленных истцами норм закона, поскольку суды уклоняются от выполнения процессуальной обязанности мотивированно объяснить, почему они отвергают нормы закона, служащие основанием иска или жалобы, и применяют совершенно другие. Проблема требует немедленного конструктивного разрешения в целях обеспечения верховенства права и доступа к правосудию. В противном случае это приведет к автоматизации произвола

Is there the rule of law in Russia? The case of corporate raiding: a note

Our leaders constantly proclaim that Russia is building a democratic state and moving along the road to the rule of law in the market economy. The rhetoric is fine, but what is really happening? In order to answer this question I would like to tackle the problem of raiding in the Russian economy, the problem most acute, urgent and illustrative of the present state of affairs. First, I'd introduce the definitions, then describe the process going on in Russia and then try to make some tentative conclusions regarding the future trends

Arson, Law and Society in Russia: Contemporary Issues and Historical Perspectives

The following report consists of two essays examining the phenomenon of arson in Russia in two periods of accelerated social change and reform: during the post-Emancipation era (1861-1905) and in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In both essays, the author examines the crime of arson as an aspect of Russia\u27s century-long struggle to establish an effective rule of law in society and in the state. During both periods under review here, Russia was without an effective rule of law. One hundred years ago, during the post-Emancipation era, arson in rural Russia was commonplace and served as a reminder of how far Russian legal reformers had to go before they could draw the peasant majority of the population into understanding of, trust in, and use of the law to mediate their relations with other members of their society. Despite sincere and serious efforts on the part of the state and of members of the legal community to bring law to the Russian countryside, arson continued to plague villages and gentry estates alike. Arson fires represented three obstacles to the development of the power of law in Russian society: as a common and frequent crime, they demonstrated general lawlessness in the countryside; as weapons of social control and retribution within the peasant community and between classes, they reflected community norms and concepts of justice that blocked the introduction of a national system of shared ethics and laws; and as unsolved crimes, they testified to the weaknesses of the system of policing, investigation, and judicial institutions. It is important to note that the second obstacle sometimes had the paradoxical effect of maintaining community stability by reenforcing community norms and ethics of behavior. While these community norms frustrated efforts to introduce a shared legal system, a genuinely national rule of law, they did not necessarily contribute to chaos or a generalized insecurity among the population. The author\u27s examination of arson in Russia beginning in the late Gorbachev era identifies two areas of continuity. First, the increase in the incidence of arson reflects the spread of lawlessness in post-Soviet Russia. As such, it is simply one of the many crimes contributing to the explosion of criminality in Russia today. Second, the breakdown in the institutions of the police, investigation, and the courts resembles the failures of these institutions in the pre-Soviet period. This breakdown has contributed to the population\u27s willingness to commit crime and to take the law into their own hands as a way to protect themselves. In this sense, post-Soviet Russians find themselves resorting to a twentieth-century form of samosud, self-help, a stage in the development of legal cultures that has always been associated with the evolution of a society toward the rule of law. and that has represented the immaturity of that legal culture. In post-Soviet Russia, self-help has resurged as the only route to self-protection in the wake of the utter collapse of institutions of law and order. The author concludes that comparing arson in the post-Soviet era with arson in the preSoviet era leads to the pessimistic conclusion that Russia today has further to go to develop a rule of law than a century ago. By examining the uses of arson and its reach into various elements of society, she concludes that arson illuminates the wholesale deterioration of shared ethical norms in the culture. Whereas communities in rural Russia a century ago displayed shared morals and constraints, even while practicing arson, urban residents of Russia today float in a population of no limits, bespredel, with no guidelines for acceptable and unacceptable behavior, much less for fundamental definitions of criminality. This report presents the essay on contemporary arson first, then provides the historical essay on arson in rural Russia a century ago

Russia and the World Trade Organization: Will TRIPS Be a Stumbling Block to Accession?

Arbetet som presenteras i denna rapport har utförts på R1K, vilket är en avdelning på Rönnskärsverken, som är en del av New Bolidens koncern. 2007 byggdes ett nytt gassystem med ett flertal nya komponenter. Till detta gassystem fanns bristande information om hur dessa komponenter fungerar och hänger ihop. Detta examensjobb har till syfte att skapa en funktionsbeskrivning i form av en lättläst operatörsmanual, för nya och erfarna operatörer. Informationen till funktionsbeskrivningen har kompilerats från tillverkarmanualer, konstruktionsritningar, informationspärmar, intervjuer samt ABB styrsystem. Bilder har tagits och redigerats, för att ge en illustrativ överblick av fluider och gasers väg genom gassystemet och dess kringutrustning. Information och bilder har sedan sammanställts i en funktionsbeskrivning (Se bilaga 1).The study which is presented in this report has been carried out at R1K, which is a section of the Rönnskär smelter plant. The plant is owned by New Boliden. In the year of 2007 a new gas system containing several new components were built. The operators that were in charge of monitoring the new system were not given sufficient education about the new components and their part in the system as whole. The purpose of this study is to create a function functional description about the system and all its components. The functional description is to be presented in the form of an easy-to-use manual for both experienced and new operators. The manual has been compiled from manufacturer manuals, construction blueprints, scattered operator manuals, knowledge of the ABB operator-system and interviews with various employees. To give the operators and the readers a good visual overview of all the different gas and fluid flows in the system pictures have been taken. All this have been compiled into the operator manual that is the functional description. (See attachment 1)