IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cep/cepdps/dp0238.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How Much Unemployment is Needed for Restructuring?: The Russian Experience

Author

Listed:
  • Richard Layard
  • Ansgar Richter

Abstract

Open unemployment in Russia has been growing very slowly - by only about 1 percentage point a year. This is mainly because of a degree of wage flexibility unknown in the West. Comparing industries over a two year period we find that, if relative employment fell by 10%, relative wages fell by 24%. Redundancies have been very low - only 1.5% of the work force in 1993. There has, however been a substantial redeployment of labour job to job movement - with a hiring rate of 21% of the workforce in 1993. The paper then discusses the reasons for this wage flexibility - in terms of the unemployment aversion of workers and the financial and other incentives facing managers. Finally, it appraises the 'Russian way' and argues that it is better than having large-scale open unemployment, provided the under-employed workers kept in enterprises do not impede the internal restructuring of the enterprises.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard Layard & Ansgar Richter, 1995. "How Much Unemployment is Needed for Restructuring?: The Russian Experience," CEP Discussion Papers dp0238, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    • Handle: RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp0238
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Philippe Aghion & Olivier Jean Blanchard, 1994. "On the Speed of Transition in Central Europe," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1994, Volume 9, pages 283-330, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. repec:bla:econom:v:49:y:1982:i:195:p:219-39 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Eicher, Theo S. & Schreiber, Till, 2010. "Structural policies and growth: Time series evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 169-179, January.
    2. John S. Earle & Scott Gehlbach, 2003. "A Spoonful of Sugar: Privatization and Popular Support for Reform in the Czech Republic," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(1), pages 1-32, March.
    3. J. David Brown & John S. Earle, 2002. "Job Reallocation and Productivity Growth under Alternative Economic Systems and Policies: Evidence from the Soviet Transition," CERT Discussion Papers 0208, Centre for Economic Reform and Transformation, Heriot Watt University.
    4. repec:dgr:rugsom:01a21 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Guido Friebel & Sergei Guriev, 2000. "Should I Stay or Can I Go? Worker Attachment in Russia," Working Papers w0008, Center for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR).
    6. Grafe, Clemens & Wyplosz, Charles, 1997. "The Real Exchange Rate in Transition Economies," CEPR Discussion Papers 1773, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Jürgen Jerger, 2012. "Zur Akzeptanz politischer und marktwirtschaftlicher Reformen in Osteuropa: Empirische Befunde und Erklärungsansätze," Working Papers 315, Leibniz Institut für Ost- und Südosteuropaforschung (Institute for East and Southeast European Studies).
    8. Andrew Atkeson & Patrick J. Kehoe, 2002. "The transition to a new economy after the Second Industrial Revolution," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Nov.
    9. Dicharry, Benoit & Nguyen-Van, Phu & Pham, Thi Kim Cuong, 2019. "“The winner takes it all” or a story of the optimal allocation of the European Cohesion Fund," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 385-399.
    10. repec:lic:licosd:13203 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Kim, Byung-Yeon & Jukka Pirttila, 2003. "The Political Economy of Reforms: Empirical Evidence from Post-Communist Transition in the 1990s," Royal Economic Society Annual Conference 2003 120, Royal Economic Society.
    12. Agnello, Luca & Castro, Vitor & Jalles, João Tovar & Sousa, Ricardo M., 2015. "What determines the likelihood of structural reforms?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 129-145.
    13. Yuanyuan Ma & Patrick Paul Walsh & Liming Wang, 2017. "Earnings Premium in State Jobs Across Urban China," Asian Economic Papers, MIT Press, vol. 16(2), pages 167-184, Summer.
    14. Vivek H. Dehejia & Douglas W. Dwyer, 1998. "Output and Unemployment Dynamics in Transition," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 178, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    15. Lehmann, Hartmut & Wadsworth, Jonathan, 2000. "Tenures That Shook the World: Worker Turnover in Russia, Poland, and Britain," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 639-664, December.
    16. Blinova, Tatiana & Rusanovsky, Victor, 2002. "Economic policy and unemployment in Russia´s regions," ERSA conference papers ersa02p234, European Regional Science Association.
    17. Flavian Clipa & Raluca Irina Clipa, 2014. "Between Frailty And Institutional Reform. The Case Of Romania," CES Working Papers, Centre for European Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, vol. 6(1), pages 42-54, March.
    18. Boeri, Tito, 1997. "Heterogeneous workers, economic transformation and the stagnancy of transitional unemployment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(3-5), pages 905-914, April.
    19. S. Fisher & R. Sahay & C. A. Vegh, 1997. "Stabilization and Growth in Transition Economies: The Early Experience," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, vol. 5.
    20. Blinova Tatiana & Rusanovsky Victor, 2002. "Economic Policy, Industrial Structure, and Unemployment in Russia's Regions," EERC Working Paper Series 01-06e, EERC Research Network, Russia and CIS.
    21. Fabrizio Coricelli & Mathilde Maurel, 2011. "Growth and Crisis in Transition: A Comparative Perspective," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(1), pages 49-64, February.
    22. Dong, Xiao-yuan & Xu, Lixin Colin, 2009. "Labor restructuring in China: Toward a functioning labor market," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 287-305, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp0238. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/publications/discussion-papers/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.