Universität Bremen

This paper presents a review of the modern tendencies in corporate governance and legislation in Russia. First, by focusing on the American and German models, the paper tries to establish the ideal analytical model of corporate governance against which one can then compare the existing body of corporate legislation in Russia. In developing this comparative analysis, we explicitly account for some key historic drivers of corporate growth which strongly influenced the development path of national corporate governance systems. We demonstrate that the prevailing way of corporate financing, its historical background, and the convergence of national legislation due to of the economic globalization are among the key factors to consider. We also show that behind the signs of economic growth triggered by the positive macroeconomic fundamentals and sky-high government oil revenues, one can also discern persistent signs of economic weaknesses in the Russian financial sector. The banking sector and the national stock market remain by and large underdeveloped and overregulated. Both are highly volatile, mainly due to their large dependence o