What are the effects of capture of legislature and regulations by few politically powerful firms on growth and redistribution? We build direct measures of regulatory capture and firms' political power based on a unique micro-level dataset on preferential treatment of selected firms by Russian...

How does regulatory capture affect growth? We construct measures of the political power of firms and regional regulatory capture using micro-level data on the preferential treatment of firms through regional laws and regulations in Russia during the period 1992-2000. Using these measures, we...

The optimal degree of decentralization depends on the importance of inter-state externalities of local policies. We show that inter-state externalities are determined by the spatial distribution of interest groups within the country. Interest groups who have multi-state scope internalize...

The paper presents the main results of the 5-th round of the Monitoring of Administrative Barriers for SME development in Russia together with the overall survey of the Monitoring. The Monitoring is based on survey of 2000 firms in 20 regions of Russia. The Monitoring is aimed at analysing the...

The paper presents the main results of the Monitoring of Administrative Barriers for SME developement in Russia. The Monitoring is based on survey of 2000 firms in 20 regions of Russia. The results of Monitoring are related to the series of reforms on deregulation of the economy in Russia