Ira Gang
Rutgers University
Department of Economics
E-mail: gang@economics.rutgers.edu

Item Number:  [J48]
Title: The Political Economy of Russian City Growth
Abstract: This paper examines the political economy of Russian city growth.  For the 1980s, we model the growth of 168 Russian cities located in 71 Russian oblasts. We examine the role of both general socio-economic characteristics and specific state controls.  Our goal is to understand the extent to which state controls on city growth actually limited city growth, controlling for the usual types of forces used to explain the attractiveness of different cities.  We find that even with considerable variation of model specification, direct controls remain important as a factor explaining the growth of Russian cities in the immediate pre-transition era.  We expect the distortions of the command era to influence city growth patterns in the transition era.

Reference:  Robert C. Stuart and Ira N. Gang, The Political Economy of Russian City Growth, Economic Development and Cultural Change 50 (2002) 491-508

Co-Author Information:
Robert C. Stuart
Rutgers University
E-Mail:  stuart@economics.rutgers.edu

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