Russian Economic Reforms as Seen by an Insider: Success or Failure?

Russia's struggle to build a market economy on the ruins of central planning has been strongly criticized by Western observers. A paper by the World Bank's chief economist, Joseph Stiglitz, entitled "Whither Reform?" contains a set of 'accusations' representative of this trend. Mau uses the arguments contained in Stiglitz's paper to reflect on the Russian transformation. He shows that most of the criticisms originate from a complete ignorance of the transformation that Russia had to undertake, and argues that this transformation has actually been a revolution.