ABSTRACT
The divergent trajectories of post-communist economies, where countries like Poland by 1994 appeared set on the path of sustained growth whereas Russia languished in depression, raised the question of explanation. In his last work Mancur Olson stressed the role played by the state in the development of markets, identifying what he called ‘market-augmenting governments’.2 In Russia in the 1990s, there was, to put it mildly, tension between market-augmentation and economic destruction. By the end of Yeltsin’s presidency Russia did have a functioning market economy, but a heavily distorted and criminalised one. Putin’s government sought to reconcile market development with state reassertion to achieve economic growth.
