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Konstantin Sonin | |
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This column appears in
The Moscow Times on fortnightly
basis. When writing a column, I am trying to utilize as much of
my academic research - and, of course, my academic readings - as
possible.
THE INFLATION BOGEYMAN
THE PRICE OF TRUST | Tuesday,
March 18, 2008. Issue 3863. Page 10. THE ERSATZ ELECTIONS | Tuesday, March 4, 2008. Issue 3854. Page 10.
GOOD INSTINCT IS THE SECRET OF PUTIN'S SUCCESS | Tuesday, February 19, 2008. Issue 3845. Page 10.
TWO DIFFERENT SOURCES OF PRIDE | Tuesday, February 5, 2008. Issue 3835. Page 10.
THE COST OF BELIEVING IN AMERICA | Tuesday, January 22, 2008. Issue 3825. Page 10.
A GOOD PILOT IS NEEDED FOR SMOOTH FLIGHT | Tuesday, December 18, 2007. Issue 3809. Page 10.
KREMLIN WINS A DUMA WITH NO LEGITIMACY | Tuesday, December 4, 2007. Issue 3799. Page 10
TRULY STRANGE DUME ELECTIONS | Tuesday, November 20, 2007. Issue 3789. Page 10.
THE PARTY OF BUSINESS | Tuesday, November 6, 2007. Issue 3779. Page 10.
A NOBEL LESSON In mid-October, there is only one suitable theme for a column on economics -- the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science. Next time Roger Myerson and Eric Maskin visit Moscow, you better listen.
FEAR KEEPS THE KREMLIN IN CHECK
When trying to predict a politician's behavior, you can either take him at his word, or you can disregard his public statements entirely and look at his actions. It is up to the elite to decide whether they believe in Bueno-de-Mesquita et al and Besley and Kudamatsu or not...
SPS LOOKING TO THE PAST, NOT THE FUTURE
For those who consider private enterprise and individual initiative the primary driving forces behind economic growth, Friday's congress of the Union of Right Forces gave cause for both optimism and disappointment. They are still running for the 1995 elections; still, the are running on a good platform.
ELECTION STILL WAITING FOR A BIG QUESTION
In October 2007, Speaker Boris Gryzlov, the leader of the United Russia party, will call 2007 elections "a referendum on Vladimir Putin's course". Apparently, Gryzlov forgot to attribute the idea to this column, which appeared in September 2007.
KNOWING WHO BUT NOT WHY This irregular column, co-written with Scott Gehlbach on a 4-hour request, appeared to do an extremely good job forecasting the immediate political developments.
FOLLOWING DENG'S FOOTSTEPS Nursultan Nazarbaev, the life-time president of Kazahstan, will be much better off if he steps down right now.
THE CHAVEZ PATH NOT TAKEN If there is any country, from which President Putin draws some lessons, this is Venezuela. A lot depends on whether or not Putin turns out to be a good student.
ALL UNDER ONE ROOF One of the reforms touted by President Vladimir Putin when he came to office was "deregulation": decreasing the administrative burden on small and medium-size businesses.
AN OUTSIDER'S WAY IN In his seventh and final state of the nation address in April, President Vladimir Putin called on those present to sum up the results of his presidency.
IMPOSSIBLE SYMMETRY Russia needs to provide a fully symmetric answer to the Estonian provocation. I propose to destroy memorials to Estonian victims of Stalin's repressions and close down those sections of the Moscow Terror Museum that are devoted to purges in Baltic countries.
SOMETHING YELTSIN DIDN'T NEED TO SEE
My political consciousness was first seriously awoken in January 1982, when I was 9 years old. The occasion was the state funeral of Mikhail Suslov, who was second only to General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev in the Communist Party hierarchy and was 79 when he died. The funeral was broadcast live on state television and I started to worry about the health of other Soviet leaders. As it turned out my concerns were warranted. Brezhnev died in November of the same year and I was witness, via television, to another four such funerals over the next three years.
RIGHT ON THE MONEY Since there is very little likelihood of even a moderately competitive presidential election breaking out in Russia anytime soon, it is a lot more interesting to follow these campaigns in other countries. Maybe money collected by politicians in the course of campaign are not that evil as you may have thought.
THE STATE OF AUCTION THEORY Hard to believe, but this column which is concerned with neglect of applies theory of auctions by political authorities, was the most discussed topic in Russian blogosphere for several days.
FOOTBALL, TV AND POPULIST PAYMENT PLANS
Nothing unexpected has occurred so far in the story surrounding plans to move broadcast of most Premier League football matches to satellite pay-TV station NTV-Plus.
IMPORT/EXPORT ECONOMISTS Top departments of economics in Russia must start to hire at the job market, or they will die.
PINNING THE BLAME SHOULD BEGIN AT HOME
New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman gave a talk in Moscow two weeks ago in which he discussed his "flat world" theory about the leveling of the global economic playing field.
KUDRIN FOR PRESIDENT The idea that elections are something that the political leadership grants the people is a fairy tale: In fact, those in power only agree to hold elections when they have exhausted all other options.
COMING TO GRIPS WITH FRIEDMAN'S BIG IDEA
Economist Milton Friedman was the last of the 20th-century titans who saw freedom as not just a pleasant adjunct to material well-being, but as an indispensable prerequisite to economic prosperity.
TIME FOR ATTENTION TO INFORMATION IN CHINA
Aren't we paying too much attention to Georgia? The most important events for Russia in recent months have occurred in another country -- one 260 times bigger than Georgia by population and 138 times larger in area. A good illustration to our "Media Freedom, Bureaucratic Incentives, and the Resource Curse" research paper.
NO EXPERIENCE WITHOUT VOTES IN THE REGIONS
On Saturday, President Vladimir Putin met with foreign political experts and journalists who are members of the Valdai Discussion Club, a talking-shop the Kremlin set up in 2004 for informal, high-level discussion of all matters Russian and political.
IN DEFENSE OF CENTRAL BANK FREEDOM
THE SCIENCE OF TRANSPARENCY
UNIVERSITIES NEED TO HIRE FROM OUTSIDE
Save the G8, July 4, 2006 The future of
the Group of Eight depends on The Smart Money, June 20, 2006 Two years
ago, I had the opportunity to speak with the deputy chairman of
A New Prosecutor May Finally Draw the Line, June 6, 2006 The pundits have mentioned a number of high-profile candidates to succeed Vladimir Ustinov, who was dismissed as prosecutor general last Friday. Three Is Not a Charm, May 23, 2006 As stipulated by the Constitution, President Vladimir Putin recently presented his state-of-the-nation address -- by rights his penultimate contribution in this category -- to the Federal Assembly. The Nature of Illegitimacy, April 25, 2006 Lately all kinds of people -- leading stock market analysts, specialists on internal arrangements within the Kremlin and people who simply like to talk about the unfairness of the privatization carried out in this country -- have found themselves an interesting topic for discussion: compensation payments. A Question of Expectations, April 11, 2006 According to
a poll conducted in March by the independent A Borderline Issue, March 28, 2006 This has been
an eventful month. On March 3, Lukashenko's Task, March 14, 2006 The
presidential election in Ivanov's Failure Reveals the Limits of Spin, February 28, 2006 The 2008 presidential campaign hasn't even begun, but the first casualties are already being carted off the field in stretchers. A
Russian Issue for the G8, The Is there any
area where The
British Example Is Worth a Look, The A reflection on the gas-price wars. Do we really need to be "a global power"? A
Year for Determining the Course, The Gazprom's conflict with Moscow
University's Great Non-Election, The The month of December has been particularly kind to political incumbents seeking another term in office. The Future
That AvtoVAZ Needs, The
The fate of AvtoVAZ was finally settled last week. The wrong way. Candidates
Should Press Some Flesh The Michael
Bloomberg won a second term as the mayor of Fair Auctions 101
The Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko scored a major victory last week when the government auctioned off the Kryvorizhstal steel mill for more than $4.8 billion... Use
Oil Windfall to Cover Pension Deficit, The
Speaking at the "Russia: Going Global?" conference last week, Oleg Vyugin, head of the Federal Service for Financial Markets, advanced a very sound idea. Sovietization by Stealth, The
The debate
about why the For Beijing,
Business Is an Article of Faith, The In a column that ran in this space last October, called "Business Attracts the Best and the Brightest," I discussed a study conducted by an international team of economists from the World Bank, Berkeley, and CEFiR, who was represented by its academic director, Ekaterina Zhuravskaya. The Stars of
Finance, The In certain
branches of science, Wrong Left
Turn, The Any politician who wants to be popular has to lean to the left to some extent because the majority of people in any country get more out of the government than they put back in taxes. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the jailed YUKOS CEO, is no exception. Change: The
Ideal Scenario, The Economists and political scientists know perfectly well that a clear-cut correlation has been observed in the 20th century between a country's rapid, stable economic growth and its frequent change of leadership. Life
Lessons, The The autobiography of former U.S. President Bill Clinton, "My Life," has come out in Russian translation under the title "Moya Zhizn." I wish Russian politicians have paid more attention. Now That
Gazprom Is Ours, The
Last Friday,
the government announced that it had acquired a controlling stake in
The Bright
Side of Brain Drain, The The Defense Ministry announced last Thursday that the number of universities and institutes certified to provide military training would be slashed from 229 to 30 by 2010. Strategists' Song and Dance, The
Investment funds assume a lot of responsibility. They can't just make up the numbers. Sometimes they have to do a little song and dance. A Bad Break
for Russians, Rich and Poor, The How have analysts reacted over the last five years to President Vladimir Putin's economic initiatives? The Alfa and Omega of
Business, The When the Yukos affair was just getting under way, many feared not only that it would instill a fear of politicians in the business community — a bad thing for business and politics alike — but also that destruction of the status quo would heat up the battle over property among businessmen themselves. The Demographics of
Drunkenness, The Speaking last month at a conference devoted to the 20th anniversary of perestroika, Mikhail Gorbachev called for a major campaign to combat drunkenness. A Word of Advice for
Nazarbayev, The
When I started writing this column a week ago the working title was "Some Advice for Askar Akayev." Some Foreign Scholars Do
Have a Clue, The It's not
uncommon to find foreign economists specializing in Only the Kremlin Can
Help Kasyanov, The In my column a month ago, I argued that the best way to restore command and control within the government would be to return former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov from the political wilderness -- by reappointing him prime minister, for example. President Vladimir Putin either turned a deaf ear to my advice or he had other ideas. When Businessmen Go
Governor, The The first governor to be appointed by President Vladimir Putin was businessman Sergei Darkin, who had been elected governor of Primorye four years ago. Come Back,
Kasyanov, The Not quite a year has passed since the appointment of Mikhail Fradkov as prime minister on March 1, 2004, but two conclusions can already be drawn. Officials Play With, Not By,
the Rules, The Most parents probably hope that their children will be winners -- in spelling bees and beauty contests, chess tournaments and boxing contests, mayoral and presidential elections. But it's very unlikely that there are parents who hope that their children will secure victory by hitting below the belt. Surreal Politics and Economic
Soap Operas, The Here's the
plot of the new Russian blockbuster "Countdown" (Lichny Nomer): An oligarch
living abroad wants to stage a fake terrorist attack in
Yugansk is Dead Meat, The Moscow Times, December 14, 2004 "Dead meat." I wrote a column with that title about the auction of Yuganskneftegaz way back in August. It's Time to Change the
Constitution, The Next week we
will mark the 11th anniversary of the Russian Constitution. Though it has
served as Russia
Can Be the Elder, Not the Bully, The Last week it
became perfectly clear which candidate Predicting
the Outcome of U.S. Elections, The These days it
is unfashionable to hold up Business
Attracts the Best and the Brightest, The
No one is surprised to hear good news about Roman Abramovich anymore. The only bad news the oligarch has received recently was when his English soccer team, Chelsea, lost on Saturday for the first time this season. But here's some good news about real Russian businessmen. All
Direct Elections Are in Jeopardy, The Electoral
democracy in The
Law of Unnatural Selection, The According to basic economic theory, market competition should result in the survival of the companies that are best adapted to their surroundings -- companies that do the best job of cutting costs, increasing efficiency and breaking into new markets. We
Should Learn From Israel's Experience, The
The causes and consequences of the Beslan tragedy have already become the subject of heated debate. But there is something we can learn right now. Liberalizing
the Market at the Micro Level, The While one part of the government has declared war on business, another part is busy liberalizing the market at the micro level. The Voters Will Not Forget or Forgive, The Moscow Times, August 10, 2004 It took the State Duma all of half an hour last Thursday to give final approval to a bill replacing benefits for vulnerable social groups with cash payments. Too Much Order Can Be a Bad
Thing, The It is considered inappropriate to speak ill of the dead. This rule does not seem to apply to banks, however. Illarionov Has a Good Point on Kyoto, The
With each
passing day, information about the plans of President Vladimir Putin and the government becomes
scarcer. An earlier Op-Ed contribution: Property Redistribution
is No Solution, The | |
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