Economic consequences of Russia's internal border
Berkowitz, D.; DeJong, D.N.
Russia' s agro food sector towards truly functioning markets: 185-201
2000
Document Number: 235284
Regional commodity-price data covering the period 1993-96 has been used to document the existence of an internal economic border that divides Russia into two distinct economic regions: the 'Red Belt' and the 'rest of Russia'. The Red Belt represents a group of regions that have broadly resisted the implementation of federally initiated market reforms. This chapter extends this work by quantifying two economic implications of this internal border. First, it shows that the Red-Belt border has limited the transmission of price signals to regions within the Red Belt. Second, it appears that regions within the Red Belt have experienced extremely poor growth performances relative to Russia as a whole.