HIER Discussion Paper Series (B) New Generation of Russian Economic Studies Edited by

After more than ten years of transformational processes, the economic structure of Russia changed drastically. During the Soviet era, many phenomena in the Soviet economy could not be analyzed from a traditional economic point of view because of its peculiar centralized organization and the extraordinary administrative power of the government. Under the socialist regime, corporate governance problems could not be discussed because many of the firms were controlled by the sectoral ministries directly. Banking system was completely different in the Soviet Union from that in western countries; that is, Soviet-type banks did not play any roles in financial intermediation. A large part of interregional labor distribution was controlled by somewhat strict internal passport system introduced during the Soviet period. The situation has, however, changed since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Corporate governance, the banking sector and the regional economy turned into most discussed issues in the study of the Russian economy, among others. In accordance with the systemic change in the Russian economy, stylized analytical methods have begun to be applied in investigating the Russian economy. It is against this background that we organized an international workshop entitled "New generation of Russian economi