Comparison of the service sector in the USSR and abroad - maintains that the small share of the service sector in the soviet economy is due chiefly to the socialist economic system and to its economic growth strategy, covers theoretical aspects, industrial aspects, the industrial structure, service labour force, the service gap in commerce, etc., and relies primarily on data for the period up to 1968. Bibliography, references and statistical tables.

This book provides a comprehensive survey of Soviet economic development from 1917 to 1965 in the context of the pre-revolutionary economy. In these years the Soviet Union negotiated the first stages of modern industrialisation and then, after the defeat of Nazi Germany and its allies, emerged as one of the two world superpowers. This was also the first attempt to construct a planned socialist order. These developments resulted in great economic achievements at great human cost. Using the results of recent Russian and Western research, Professor Davies discusses the inherent faults and strengths of the system, and pays particular attention to the major controversies. Was the Russian Revolution doomed to failure from the outset? Could the mixed economy of the 1920s have led to a democratic socialist economy? What was the influence of Soviet economic development on the rest of the world?

This survey of modern Soviet economic growth is based almost exclusively on Western works and does not include direct references to Soviet scholarly work. It is directed to the general public of economists, and therefore contains a section on sources of economic information about the Soviet Union and several subsections, such as the one describing the basics of the operation of the Soviet system, that are only indirectly related to the main issue. Contents: Introduction; Availability and Reliability of Information; The Growth Record; Structural Changes; The Socialist System and its Growth Strategy; R & D and Technological Change; The R & D Sector; Why did Growth Rates Decline?; Production Function Estimates; Evaluation and Conclusion-or, can The Trend be Reversed? (KR).

Leading scholars in the field analyse the Soviet economy sector by sector to make available, in textbook form, the results of the latest research on Soviet industrialisation.

The transformation of the Soviet economy is bound to be extraordinarily complex and will take many years to complete. Three closely related areas require action at the outset of the process: macroeconomic stabilization, including fiscal, monetary, trade and payments, and incomes policies; price reform in an environment of increased domestic and external competition; and ownership reform, involving the rapid privatization of retail trade and small enterprises, along with the commercialization of large, state-owned enterprises. Many measures are needed to support policy actions in these three areas. A social safety net will be needed to protect the most vulnerable from the short-term adverse consequences of the reform process. Other measures include completion of the legal framework for a market economy, the creation of a market system for banking and finance, the demonopolization and restructuring of many enterprises, the reconstruction of the transport and communications infrastructure, the development of a system of labor relations, the process of privatization of state enterprises and collective farms, and the addressing of serious environmental problems. These and other issues, and the close relationships between them, are discussed in this study.

By 1999, Russia's economy was growing at almost 7% per year, and by 2008 reached 11th place in the world GDP rankings. Russia is now the world's second largest producer and exporter of oil, the largest producer and exporter of natural gas, and as a result has the third largest stock of foreign exchange reserves in the world, behind only China and Japan. But while this impressive economic growth has raised the average standard of living and put a number of wealthy Russians on the Forbes billionaires list, it has failed to solve the country's deep economic and social problems inherited from the Soviet times. Russia continues to suffer from a distorted economic structure, with its low labor productivity, heavy reliance on natural resource extraction, low life expectancy, high income inequality, and weak institutions. While a voluminous amount of literature has studied various individual aspects of the Russian economy, in the West there has been no comprehensive and systematic analysis of the socialist legacies, the current state, and future prospects of the Russian economy gathered in one book. The Oxford Handbook of the Russian Economy fills this gap by offering a broad range of topics written by the best Western and Russian scholars of the Russian economy. While the book's focus is the current state of the Russian economy, the first part of the book also addresses the legacy of the Soviet command economy and offers an analysis of institutional aspects of Russia's economic development over the last decade. The second part covers the most important sectors of the economy. The third part examines the economic challenges created by the gigantic magnitude of regional, geographic, ethnic, religious and linguistic diversity of Russia. The fourth part covers various social issues, including health, education, and demographic challenges. It will also examine broad policy challenges, including the tax system, rule of law, as well as corruption and the underground economy. Michael Alexeev and Shlomo Weber provide for the first time in one volume a complete, well-rounded, and essential look at the complex, emerging Russian economy.

New approach to the economic theory of resources, showing the positive role that scarcities can play in triggering economic growth.