ABSTRACT
This paper addresses two key issues, namely the role of convertibility in the transition to market-based economic systems and the desirability of arranging international support for ruble stabilization. The first has been motivated with a view to obtaining international discipline, gaining macroeconomic stability, progressing with the transformation of the legacies of planning, and maintaining useful ruble trade among the republics (this topic is examined elsewhere, however). As far as gaining support for a fund to enhance ruble convertibility is concerned, one must be clear about the meaning of convertibility, the alternative policies that can be embraced, the initial conditions, and indeed the scope and credibility of domestic policies directed at stabilizing the economy and introducing structural reforms. Taking everything into account, I am not favorably inclined toward a ruble stabilization fund as presently conceived. A broader effort to co-manage the transition with international financial and technical support as well as far-reaching surveillance of the type employed after World War II for Western Europe would seem more promising, but this option is not now seriously entertained for, on the whole, narrowly partisan reasons.
