Resumen

BRACHO, Gerardo. Foreign Trade Liberalization, deindustrialization and the Post-Comunist Russian Economy. Inv. Econ [online]. 2004, vol.63, n.247, pp.75-102. ISSN 0185-1667.

In October 1991, the Russian government announced its strategy of transition to capitalism inspired in the so-called Washington Consensus. More than ten years later, such transition has gone awry. In the ongoing discussion on the causes of the fiasco, mainstream economists claim that in spite of intentions, the Consensus strategy has not been systematically applied in Russia. They argue, among other things, that there has been quite limited external liberalization, which brings them to assume that Russia has enjoyed and enjoys a high level of protection. This article has a double task. On the one hand, it discloses the peculiar mechanisms that have left the Russian economy much more exposed to foreign competition than it is usually acknowledged. On the other, it positions the mayhem that such competition has caused to local industry in the context of a preliminary analysis of the destructive economic model that has taken root in Post-Communist Russia. It further tackles two paradoxes that emerge in such model: Why ‒contrary to expectations‒ has the transition not produced a more consumer oriented industrial structure? How come has consumption weathered the storm much better than output or investment? It concludes by suggesting that in the post-Soviet context, an alternative more gradual and state directed strategy of transition, with an industrial policy at its core, would have given better results.

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