Three hypotheses about the nature of federal tax arrears in Russia in the second half of the 1990s are tested empirically. Tax arrears can be a result of: 1) liquidity problems in firms, 2) redistributive subsidies of the federal government, or 3) regional political resistance to federal tax...

We use data from the 2006 round of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey to describe perceptions of the Russian population about the transition process and the role of the state compared with that of free markets. We find that about one-half of the Russian population is disappointed with...