Market dependency and financial buffers in Russia

During Russia‟s transition, debates raged over the formation of a market economy and the role of the state. Behind these debates lay both the control of oligarchs over strategic branches of the economy that export raw materials and the experience of the 1998 crisis that drew attention to the country‟s external and internal economic vulnerability. This study deals with the operation of the country's sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), including the effects of raw material prices, the pension system and aspects of the lessons of capital market turbulences under the current crisis. The Russian version of the multipillar pension system puts the emphasis on financial sustainability, by which only a minimum of financial risk has been taken by the State, while its monopoly in the management of pension funds has ensured a market for its own debt