The accuracy of a tax return is usually interpreted as an outcome of the tax evasion decision by an individual. However, in non-democratic regimes with predatory blackmail tax systems it is possible that large sums voluntarily reported by influential politicians or businessmen may be used as...

In economics, the local knowledge advantage is arguably one of the key arguments in favor of decentralizing the public sector. However, empirical investigations of this particular effect have been scarce. This paper tests the existence of the local knowledge advantage in a real-world setting....

The paper investigates the determinants and consequences of variation of development of the civil society across Russian regions. It starts by looking at factors explaining the level of development of civil society in Russian regions. In the next step, it links the development of civil society...

The paper investigates the role of judiciary behavior in the development of SMEs in Russian regions. Specifically, it looks at how repressive Russian courts are in punishing economic crime. Repressiveness of courts can be both an obstacle of business development (if it serves the predatory...

The differentiation in the impact of resources on economic growth is often explained by the specifics of institutional factors. The aim of this paper is to investigate how sub-national political differences influence the effect of natural resources on economic growth. Using a dataset of Russian...

This article considers the impact of sub-national political systems on economic growth by applying the case of Russian regions from 2000 to 2004. It investigates two dimensions of the sub-national systems. First, it studies the influence of democracy on economic performance, providing evidence...

The accuracy of a tax return is usually interpreted as an outcome of the tax evasion decision by an individual. However, in non-democratic regimes with predatory blackmail tax systems it is possible that large sums voluntarily reported by influential politicians or businessmen may be used as...