The conventional explanation for the dynamics of output during transition is associated with “good” and “bad” economic policies, in particular with the progress achieved in the liberalization, as measured by the liberalization index, and with the success or failure in macroeconomic stabilization, as measured by the rates of inflation. This paper seeks to provide alternative explanation to the differing performance during transition: the supply-side recession, which in turn is caused by reallocation of resources needed to overcome disproportions inherited from the era of central planning. It is shown that over 60% of the differences in the economic performance can in fact be explained by uneven initial conditions, such as the level of development and pre-transition disproportions in industrial structure and trade patterns.After controlling for these non-policy factors, the impact of liberalization becomes insignificant. However, variations in inflation rates and institutional capacities of the state (as measured by the change in the share of government revenues in GDP and/or by the ratio of the rule of law to the democracy index) remain important determinants of performance - together with non-policy factors they explain over 85% of differences in GDP change in 28 transition economies. It is therefore argued that the debate between shock-therapists and gradualists that dominated professional discussions for the whole decade of the 1990s was interesting, but to a large extent misfocused and misguided. The crux of the debate – the speed of transition - turned out to be a secondary issue for performance, whereas the primary issue – the strength of institutions – was overlooked by both schools of thought. Comparative Economic Studies (2000) 42, 1–57; doi:10.1057/ces.2000.1

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SummaryBackgroundPopulation-level data suggest that economic disruptions in the early 1990s increased working-age male mortality in post-Soviet countries. This study uses individual-level data, using an indirect estimation method, to test the hypothesis that fast privatisation increased mortality in Russia.MethodsIn this retrospective cohort study, we surveyed surviving relatives of individuals who lived through the post-communist transition to retrieve demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of their parents, siblings, and male partners. The survey was done within the framework of the European Research Council (ERC) project PrivMort (The Impact of Privatization on the Mortality Crisis in Eastern Europe). We surveyed relatives in 20 mono-industrial towns in the European part of Russia (ie, the landmass to the west of the Urals). We compared ten fast-privatised and ten slow-privatised towns selected using propensity score matching. In the selected towns, population surveys were done in which respondents provided information about vital status, sociodemographic and socioeconomic characteristics and health-related behaviours of their parents, two eldest siblings (if eligible), and first husbands or long-term partners. We calculated indirect age-standardised mortality rates in fast and slow privatised towns and then, in multivariate analyses, calculated Poisson proportional incidence rate ratios to estimate the effect of rapid privatisation on all-cause mortality risk.FindingsBetween November, 2014, and March, 2015, 21 494 households were identified in 20 towns. Overall, 13 932 valid interviews were done (with information collected for 38 339 relatives [21 634 men and 16 705 women]). Fast privatisation was strongly associated with higher working-age male mortality rates both between 1992 and 1998 (age-standardised mortality ratio in men aged 20–69 years in fast vs slow privatised towns: 1·13, SMR 0·83, 95% CI 0·77–0·88 vs 0·73, 0·69–0·77, respectively) and from 1999 to 2006 (1·15, 0·91, 0·86–0·97 vs 0·79, 0·75–0·84). After adjusting for age, marital status, material deprivation history, smoking, drinking and socioeconomic status, working-age men in fast-privatised towns experienced 13% higher mortality than in slow-privatised towns (95% CI 1–26).InterpretationThe rapid pace of privatisation was a significant factor in the marked increase in working-age male mortality in post-Soviet Russia. By providing compelling evidence in support of the health benefits of a slower pace of privatisation, this study can assist policy makers in making informed decisions about the speed and scope of government interventions.FundingThe European Research Council.

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This paper examines the determinants of financial flows between the federal government and regional authorities in Russia. The main question is to what extent intergovernmental transfers correspond to the ‘ideal pattern’ – equalisation of the abilities of the regions to provide public goods – and to what extent, if at all, they reflect the influence of federal–regional political discourse (asymmetrical federalism). The main finding is that actual net transfers since 1994, although quite close to the ‘ideal patterns’, depended also on the results of the parliamentary (1993, 1995, 1999) and presidential (1996, 2000) elections and on the relations of the regions with the federal centre. The more votes cast for pro-central government parties in parliamentary elections and for Yeltsin in the 1996 presidential elections and the lower the tensions with Moscow after the elections, the more favourable was the fiscal balance for the region with the federal centre. The result is very robust when using different measures of fiscal capacity (index of tax potential) and costs of providing public goods (budgetary expenditure adjustment index). Comparative Economic Studies (2004) 46, 515–541. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ces.8100049

The European Research Council.

BackgroundPrevious research using routine data identified rapid mass privatisation as an important driver of mortality crisis following the collapse of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe. However, existing studies on the mortality crisis relying on individual level or routine data cannot assess both distal (societal) and proximal (individual) causes of mortality simultaneously. The aim of the PrivMort Project is to overcome these limitations and to investigate the role of societal factors (particularly rapid mass privatisation) and individual-level factors (e.g. alcohol consumption) in the mortality changes in post-communist countries.MethodsThe PrivMort conducts large-sample surveys in Russia, Belarus and Hungary. The approach is unique in comparing towns that have undergone rapid privatisation of their key industrial enterprises with those that experienced more gradual forms of privatisation, employing a multi-level retrospective cohort design that combines data on the industrial characteristics of the towns, socio-economic descriptions of the communities, settlement-level data, individual socio-economic characteristics, and individuals’ health behaviour. It then incorporates data on mortality of different types of relatives of survey respondents, employing a retrospective demographic approach, which enables linkage of historical patterns of mortality to exposures, based on experiences of family members. By May 2016, 63,073 respondents provided information on themselves and 205,607 relatives, of whom 102,971 had died. The settlement-level dataset contains information on 539 settlements and 12,082 enterprises in these settlements in Russia, 96 settlements and 271 enterprises in Belarus, and 52 settlement and 148 enterprises in Hungary.DiscussionIn addition to reinforcing existing evidence linking smoking, hazardous drinking and unemployment to mortality, the PrivMort dataset will investigate the variation in transition experiences for individual respondents and their families across settlements characterized by differing contextual factors, including industrial characteristics, simultaneously providing information about how excess mortality is distributed across settlements with various privatization strategies.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12889-016-3249-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.