Anders Åslund provides a comprehensive description of the main political and economic events of Vladimir Putin’s 20 years at the helm of the country. In politics, Åslund shows how Putin skillfully maneuvered to destroy democracy in Russia. I argue that the “cultural backlash” by older generations played perhaps an even more important role. I also show that the young generations hold rather liberal values, thus providing hope for the future. In economics, Åslund focuses on large state corporations, assets of Putin’s cronies, and macroeconomic policies, with only general statements about the country’s institutional weakness. I complement Åslund’s analysis by a more detailed examination of the impact of institutions and briefly survey fiscal federalism and informal economic activities—issues without which the workings of the Russian economy are hard to understand. (JEL D72, H77, O52, P26, P35)

Economists devote considerable effort to the analysis of various forms of nonprice rationing. These analyses generally disregard forces that act to foil rationing schemes. Even with a commodity that seems to be easy to control, however, in a system with extensive rationing experience, nonprice rationing schemes can be circumvented. This thesis is examined for the case of housing distribution in the U.S.S.R. utilizing the data from a survey of recent Soviet emigres. It is shown that administrative rationing of Soviet urban housing is partially replaced by market forces acting usually through the second economy. Copyright 1988 by MIT Press.

Our goal is to show that contrary to the claims made in several recent papers, the effect of a large endowment of oil and other mineral resources on long-term economic growth of countries has been on balance positive. Moreover, the claims of a negative effect of oil and mineral wealth on the countries' institutions are called into question.