Provides insight into the restructuring of Russian industrial enterprises, with an overview of industrial enterprise in transition and four in-depth case studies of enterprises, covering the period since the beginning of radical reform. Case studies look at the changing strategy of management in different types of former state enterprises, including pioneers in privatization, members of the military-industrial sector, and a passenger transport enterprise. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Considers the achievements and challenges facing East Asia's workers. The report reviews labor outcomes and evaluates the benefits of rapid growth to workers and the impact that the region's role in the global economy has had on them. It also examines labor market policies and institutions in the region, labor in the transition economies, and the outlook for East Asian workers in the 21st century. Also available: World Development Report 1995: Workers in an Integrating World Stock no. 61102 (ISBN 0-19-521102-2).

The transition to a market economy proves to be far more difficult in Russia than in the former centrally planned economies of eastern Europe. The Russian economy continues to face serious problems, including substantial inflationary pressures, falling output, and capital flight. The most positive aspect of the transition has been the relatively fast pace of privatization. Challenges for Russian Economic Reform contains papers published by the post-Soviet Business Forum at the Royal Institute of International Affairs that have been revised for this volume. The contributers, specalists in Russian economic affairs, examine the principal economic and institutional factors that have hindered transformation in Russia. The sheer size of the country has complicated the problem of exposing domestic producers to foreign competition and has weakened the ability of central authorities to control the regions. Economic stabilization has been hampered by the difficulties in establishing sound economic relations with the former Soviet republics. David Dyker and Michael Barrow analyze the problems of monopoly and competition policy in Russia. Philip Hanson assesses the obstacles to economic stabilization posed by regional economic interests and examines regional diversity in reform implementation. Michael Kaser examines the problems of privatization by regions and sectors in Russia and the CIS and the institutional obstacles encountered by foreign investors. Alan Smith explores the problems created by the breakup of traditional trade and payment relations with the non-Russian republics of the former Soviet Union and bilateral trade links with Eastern Europe. He also provides an overall assessment of Russian economic performance since the collapse of communism.

This book tells the story of what might have been considered an unlikely source of dynamic change in Russia - formerly state-owned manufacturing enterprises and their managers. Based on interviews conducted over a six-year span with managers at 47 manufacturing, light industry, consumer durable, and food processing firms in four Russian cities, the study documents the real world challenge of turning hidebound, often dysfunctional manufacturing operations into thriving companies. With analytical rigor and theoretical creativity, this work will dispel some common misconceptions about the Russian economy and make a contribution to the literature about management, company strategies, and corporate governance.

Many commentators expected the Russian trade unions to collapse along with the system of which they were an integral part, but the trade unions survived the storms of the Yeltsin era by adopting a strategy of 'social partnership'. This book, based on case-study and survey research in eight Russian regions, provides a detailed account of the development of trade unionism in Russia since the collapse of the soviet system. Against the background of the role of the trade unions in the soviet system, the book reviews the political role, structure and functions of the trade unions, development of social partnership at federal and regional levels, and provides a detailed account of the activity of the trade unions at the level of enterprise. The book concludes with a critical assessment of the Russian unions' strategy of 'social partnership' and locates it in comparative perspective.

Here, for the first time, two of Russia's leading economists provide an authoritative analysis of the transition to a democratic market economy that has taken place in Russia since 1990. Serguey Braguinsky, a Russian economist with extensive international experience, and Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of the liberal "Yabloko" party and a major public figure in Russia, focus on the institutions that are critical to a successful transition and the economic incentives needed to make these institutions work. Finally, they discuss in detail the specific components of the economic processes that are necessary for economic transition in general and they draw lessons that can be applied to other nations dealing with similar transitions. In 1989, Grigory Yavlinsky became a member of the Commission for Economic Reform and wrote the groundbreaking "500 Day Plan," which outlined the first program of transition to a market economy. Two years later, he co-wrote the program of strategic cooperation between the Soviet government and the West (known as the "Grand Bargain"). Here he and Serguey Braguinsky examine what went wrong with the Russian plan--and what is needed to put the economy back on the road to becoming a fully functioning market economy. The first section of the book presents a new interpretation of the political economy of the socialist state and the incentives and institutions that underpin it, with an emphasis on the present Russian situation. The second part deals with the political economy of "spontaneous transition" and the inefficiencies inherent in economies that lack the organizations and institutions that inhere in established Western democratic economies. In the final section, the authors present a program of actions to put the economic transition in Russia back on track, based on their assessment of the actual current state of both the economy and the government. Their approach is unique in emphasizing organizational evolution at the microeconomic level instead of stressing macroeconomic issues such as money and inflation that are at the heart of most arguments. This is a thoughtful and thought-provoking book and one that will be widely discussed and debated.