The Economics of Soviet Breakup

by van Selm; Bert

• ISBN13: 9780415148320
• ISBN10: 0415148324
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1997-05-05
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Before 1991, little was written or known of the individual states which made up the USSR, and their identities were subsumed into the Russian monolith.The Economics of Soviet Break-upanalyses the effects of the break-up of the Soviet Union into fifteen independent states. Topics discussed include: past and present economic relations between the republics, and forecasts for the future discussion of Customs Unions, Monetary Union or a Payments Union as possible ways forward for these states, economic integration theory, how the states of the Soviet Union functioned before the dissolution.

Table of Contents

List of tables	viii	(2)
Preface	x	(2)
Acknowledgements	xii
1 INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW	1	(8)
Organisation of this book	8	(1)
2 THE ECONOMICS OF SOVIET BREAK-UP	9	(18)
A proposition	9	(5)
The size of the pie and its distribution	14	(5)
Soviet break-up	19	(6)
Conclusion	25	(2)
3 THE SOVIET UNION, 1922-91	27	(13)
The rise and fall of the Union	27	(4)
The republics' inputs: land, labour, capital	31	(3)
The republics' outputs	34	(4)
The Union's infrastructural legacy	38	(1)
Conclusion	39	(1)
4 FORMER SOVIET REPUBLICS' ECONOMIC INTERDEPENDENCE	40	(19)
Introduction	40	(1)
Analysing Soviet republics' economic interdependence	40	(4)
Exchange of outputs	44	(3)
Exchange of inputs: capital	47	(5)
Exchange of inputs: labour	52	(2)
Interrepublican economic relations: future prospects	54	(4)
Conclusion	58	(1)
5 A GRAVITY MODEL OF THE FORMER SOVIET UNION	59	(10)
Introduction	59	(1)
Gravity modelling in economics	60	(1)
The Soviet case	60	(3)
Expected trade reorientation	63	(4)
Implications for potential 'former Soviet' institutions	67	(1)
Conclusion	68	(1)
6 THE SOVIET UNION AS A CUSTOMS AND MONETARY UNION	69	(18)
Introduction	69	(1)
Customs Unions theory	70	(3)
Monetary Unions	73	(4)
Theory applied to the EU and the former USSR	77	(8)
Conclusion	85	(2)
7 THE SOVIET UNION AS A PAYMENTS UNION	87	(14)
Introduction	87	(1)
The European Payments Union Experience, 1950-8	87	(5)
Europe then and Russia now	92	(3)
Practice: what's going on?	95	(4)
Conclusion	99	(2)
8 THE SOVIET UNION AS A REDISTRIBUTOR	101	(5)
Introduction	101	(1)
Capital transfers: methodology and results	102	(1)
A shift in investment priorities	103	(3)
The effects of capital transfers: dispersion trends in the Soviet republics' levels of development	106	(2)
Transfers after the break-up of the Soviet Union	108	(3)
Conclusion	111	(1)
Appendix: output maximisation versus equality	112	(2)
9 THE NEWLY INDEPENDENT STATES IN TRANSITION	114	(17)
Introduction	114	(1)
Stabilisation	114	(5)
Liberalisation	119	(5)
Privatisation	124	(5)
Conclusion	129	(2)
10 CONCLUSION Economic relations among ex-USSR republics: past, present and future	131	(9)
Introduction	131	(1)
Past	131	(1)
Present	132	(2)
Future	134	(1)
The size of the pie and its distribution revisited	135	(3)
Border relevance	138	(2)
Notes	140	(5)
References	145	(8)
Index	153