This paper examines the issue of financing the social goal of universal access to the telephone network. There are many feasible methods of financing the subsidies involved. We show that alternative financing schemes differ in terms of their economic efficiency, equity, political attractiveness,...

This paper examines how issues ranging from inflation to monopolization in the former Soviet Union are occasionally misdiagnosed, leading to sub-optimal prescriptions for reform. The misdiagnosis occurs because the pre-reform state of the Russian economy is often taken at face value as a...

One of the most notable, but least discussed, aspects of the halting attempts during the past six years to reform the economies of the Soviet Union, and now those of its successor states, has been the prominent role played by professional economists. Not since the mid-1920s has the Soviet...

Sunk costs and uncertainty characterize many public policy changes, as well as private investments. The Dixit-Pindyck theory of investment under uncertainty can then be applied to policy reforms, generating a positive option value to delaying a policy reform. The potential to adjust enforcement...

Most analyses of parallel markets in centrally-planned systems focus on queue-rationing as the mechanism whereby state-sector goods become available for second economy resale. This article takes into account employee diversion of goods as a second channel through which merchandise can move to...

Most analyses of parallel markets in centrally planned systems focus on queue-rationing as the mechanism whereby state-sector goods become available for second economy resale. This article takes into account employee diversion of goods as a second channel through which merchandise can move to...