Vsevolod Ostapenko*

“RUSSIAN ECONOMICS” OR ECONOMICS IN : WHAT WAS BUILT ON THE RUINS OF THE ? (first draft)

Abstract

To be added…

JEL: A11, A14, B29

* St. Petersburg State University, Faculty of Economics, associate professor, [email protected] 1. Introduction. Dismantling of the Soviet political system and transition to the economy in Russia were inevitably accompanied by fundamental changes in spheres of science and education. The long- lasting existence of two key branches in the field of economic thought, namely political economy of and political economy of socialism, broke off. Russian started to rethink their research strategies and paradigms within which they had been operating. This process has not been completed yet. Economics profession in the country remains in the situation of blurring scientific standards and substantial fragmentation of the research area.

As it is stated by Joachim Zweynert, sphere of economic science in Russia has evolved into something so heterogenous and manifold that one should even use term “economics” with caution. We will thus exploit different paraphrases like “Russian economic thought”. The initial problem arising is whether it’s reasonable to describe economics in national context. Of course, the history of economic thought is rich in examples of using national signs in defining various scientific schools: for example, British political economy or German historical school. More often the title of the school contains also the name of the university (research center), which gave work to its most prominent representatives (like Chicago or Stockholm schools).

In 2015 a great volume on national and geographical features of economic science was published under the editorship of Vincent Barnett (Barnett, 2015). The appearance of this edition confirmed the soundness of picking out country-level characteristics of economics. Francois Allisson’s contribution on Russia and Ukraine in this volume covers mainly pre-Soviet and Soviet economic thought (Allisson, 2015). Our paper partly complements his analysis by extending the period and concentrating on the modern-day Russia. We are trying to figure out main patterns in the development of economic thought in post-Soviet era. Two key questions are posed: 1) Is there currently a consistent system of analytical methods, scientific approaches and policy conclusions which could represent the national school in Russian economic thought? To put it differently, has a phenomenon of “Russian economics” emerged after the transition to capitalism? The alternative hypothesis presumes that the only factor uniting Russian economists is the language used, and in that sense no specific attributes of a school of thought could be outlined. 2) Has the economic science in Russia become global? To understand the overall contribution of Russian economists in their research fields it is necessary is to locate Russian economic thought in international coordinates. To get at least preliminary answer for the second question we run a 2 quantitative bibliographic analysis of publications of Russian scholars in top international peer- reviewed journals in 2014-2018.

Many historians of science have analyzed the transformation of Russian community of economists since the collapse of the USSR and beginning of market reforms. The paper extends and augments several seminal pieces on the latest developments in Russian economic thought. First, it follows the strand of research on specific features of the national economic science (Muravyev, 2011; Libman, Zweynert, 2014; Maltsev, 2016; Grigoryev, 2017). The key empirical contribution is estimation of the current degree of integration of Russian scholars into the global economic science. Second, it readdresses the big discussion around the legitimacy of separation of so-called “Russian school of economic thought”. This discussion took place at the beginning of the new millennium and was initiated by one of the patriarchs of the Soviet political economy Leonid Abalkin. The most significant papers on the topic were published in Russian in Voprosy ekonomiki (2001), and English translation of these texts appeared in Problems of Economic Transition (2002).

2. Debates over Russian school of economics and its aftermath. Keeping in mind the conditional character of all the terms used, we would like to recall the pros and cons for speaking about Russian school of economics. In the first decade of the new millennium many issues related to the history of formation and development of economic science in Russia were widely discussed. The increased interest in this subject was primarily determined by intention to apprehend scientific traditions of the past and their possible reflection in economics of post-Soviet Russia. Special conferences were held in 2000 and 2003, their results spilled over into the collective monographs, which outlined divergent positions and galvanized further debates (Abalkin (ed.), 2003; Yakovets (ed.), 2003).

One of the leading and highly influential titans of political economy in the Soviet Union Leonid Abalkin claimed the existence of unique «Russian school of economic thought» (Abalkin, 2002), and the formulation of this hypothesis provoked rigorous discussion. He insisted that virtually all eminent Russian scholars of the second half of the ХIX century and till the early 30s of the ХX were the members of the school. There are 24 persons in the list of Abalkin and he admitted the possibility of its enlarging. Abalkin’s view was supported by a group of renowned Russian economists of the same generation, including Iurii Ol’sevich (Ol’sevich, 2002), Dmitry Sorokin (Sorokin, 2002), Viktor Ryazanov (Ryazanov, 2003; Ryazanov, 2010) and others. But many prominent thinkers and historians of economics were either skeptical or directly rejected 3

Abalkin’s view. Among them were Vladimir Avtonomov (Avtonomov, 2002), Leonid Shirokorad (Shirokorad, 2003), Vincent Barnett and Joachim Zweynert (Barnett, Zweynert, 2008).

Adherents of the “Russian school” hypothesis exploit the specific approach to the history of economic thought. It is connected with an idea of the dependence of economic theories on particular historical and sociocultural features of the country. In a broader context these features constitute the whole complex of “civilizational traits” (Ryazanov, 2010). The appearance of national economic doctrines reflects the diversity of economic conditions and acts as a reaction of the science on various social inquiries. Thus, the history of economics has to be studied in a close collaboration with the specifics of the given national economic system.

Scholars united by Abalkin in the group titled “Russian economics”, from Sergey Witte to Nikolai Kondratiev, did not have much in common if to consider research methods, ideological and theoretical positions. It would be more appropriate to say that all the well-known attributes of a school of thought differed dramatically. So in case we regard a scientific school as a group of scholars with common views, principles and methods, Abalkin’s hypothesis of “Russian school” may seem unreasonable. But Ryazanov and Ol’sevich claim that basis for Russian school of economic thought is the common object of research. They define Russian school as the one aimed at analyzing national economic development. This quotation helps to understand their position: “… One should not reject the possibility of aggregation of economists with diverse views and methods of analysis into the united school. The fact of the matter is that all these different opinions had one and the same root, which is conditioned by the special attention to Russian economy, by the necessity to justify the choice of economic development strategy… Such a general focus on the central problem of economic development can serve the basis for the emergence of Russian scientific school in a broader sense, in spite of the fact that it is characterized by divergent opinions and estimates… In this case the common object of analysis, that is the current economic system and the search for the best development strategy, including the direct clash of different opinions in scientific discussions, brings economists together” (Ryazanov, 2010, p. 74-75)

The same is Ol’sevich’s approach: “The national economy, or, in other words, the “concrete theory” of the Russian economy… was based on the study of the fundamental specific features and long-term, stable trends of that economy along with the objective requirements of national development” (Ol’sevich, 2002, p. 114). These authors augmented initial Abalkin’s hypothesis 4 and suggested a new title – “Russian school of national economy”, or pochvennicheskaya school. They claim that key features of Russian school include the idea of diversity in economic structure (mixed and multi-sector economy as the sustainable type of social organization) and justification of “nationally-oriented”, not “liberal, or market-oriented” reforms and development strategies. According to the advocates of such approach, taking into consideration national specificity should make it possible to avoid the practice of simple copying Western economic theories.

Economists criticizing the concept of Russian school pay attention to the fact that the role of national factor may not be rejected, but it cannot create the grounding for a separate school of thought. Oleg Anan’in once famously noted that Russia is a different, unique country, but all countries are unique. Vladimir Avtonomov describing the example of Austrian and Swedish schools claims that national school of economic thought always “was a matter of groups of researchers using a unified methodology of analysis, a general categorical apparatus, and united around their teacher/leaders… In this sense, a unified Russian school of economic analysis does not exist, in our opinion. We can talk about some national traditions in the style of economic theorizing that are comparatively long-lived. But they have been smoothed over to a significant extent in the contemporary era – the “mainstream” can now be considered generally accepted around the world, whereas in the 1930s the national differences in the styles of theoretizing were very substantial” (Avtonomov, 2002, p. 122). Leonid Shirokorad insists that Russian economic thought in the end of XIX – beginning of XX centuries was pluralistic and consisted of very different theoretical and methodological approaches. His conclusion is straightforward: the area was too divergent, it would be more correct to speak about the peculiar features of economic science in Russia, or so-called national economic reasoning, but not a unique school of thought (Shirokorad, 2003, p. 54). The same conclusion was made by Barnett and Zweynert. They regard “Russian school of economic thought” as an incorrect specification: “Within Russian economics there has been a definite tendency to focus on specific themes and topics over a considerable period of time, for example on the progress of business cycles and industrialization strategy. In tackling these topics, Russian economists have employed a wide variety of ideas and tools of analysis, many of which were adapted from overseas. The specific mix of the adaptation regarding the balance of Western and native Russian ideas was invariably unique, but this does not quite constitute the existence of a ‘Russian school’ of economic thinking, as is implied in other geographically-focused phrases such as ‘Austrian school’, ‘Cambridge school’ or ‘Chicago school’. Russian economics was frequently more diverse in methodology and approach than the

5 economic analysis of these more accepted types of school invariably displayed” (Barnett, Zweynert, 2008, p. 188).

Rejection of the very idea of the national economic school is based on the assumption that economics has no national boundaries as well as any other science (physics, chemistry, mathematics etc.). Modern research standards require economics to be objective, global activity with results that could be verified internationally. Under these conditions economic science acquires features of the universal scientific knowledge. It does not mean that specific country- level economic problems should not be the object of study. But in that case one can simply speak about national research traditions, there is little sense in describing all the research on Russian economy as Russian school of economics. Instead, we underline the fact that some generally accepted scientific tools and concepts can be used for exploring economic phenomena at the national, or regional level.

Summarizing the discussion which has been briefly described in this section, it is more likely that there is no specific Russian school in the history of economic thought. The outcome is not surprising. In the second volume of the recent fundamental “Handbook on the History of Economic Analysis” 17 schools of thought with national specification in the title is outlined, but the only reference to Russia is the Russian school of mathematical economics (Faccarello, Kurz (eds), 2016). All the other research conducted in different time periods by Russian authors does not have any unique approach or policy conclusions which could legitimate the use of term “Russian school of economics”.

Debates between advocates of the Russian “own way” in economic theory and practice and their opponents touched upon the distant past. But what about the present-day condition of the Russian economic thought? How has it evolved since the collapse of the Soviet Marxian economic ideology? We would like to extend the discussion on Russian economics and apply its results to the newest stage in the development of economic science in Russia. To do that, we need to consider the processes which have been taking place in the field during the first decades of the post-Soviet era.

3. Evolution of economics in post-Soviet Russia. Economic science in the Soviet Union consisted of three strands – political economy of capitalism, political economy of socialism and mathematical economics. First two parts represented the vastly ideologized and non-formalized approach to economic problems, while 6 mathematical economics was a special, almost isolated sphere with a domination of truly scientific research methods. In this sense mathematical school was far closer to the global science than dogmatic Marxian-Leninist doctrines. Mathematical economics in the Soviet Union sometimes referred to as a separate school of economic thought (Belykh, 2016) with its representatives praised for original theories, much more consistent and applicable than that of political economy. The founding fathers of the school were Leonid Kantorovich, Viktor Novozhilov and Vasily Nemchinov, outstanding scholars on later stages – Vladimir Faltzman and Viktor Polterovich.

As it is stated by M. Alexeev, C. Gaddy and J Leitzel, “beginning at the undergraduate level, Soviet economics students followed one of two distinct tracks: political economy or mathematical economics. Political economy, a historically oriented and descriptive field with (until recently) strong Marxist-Leninist ideological underpinnings, is the specialization of the vast majority of Soviet economists. Mathematical economics, on the other hand, is a highly technical discipline generally taught in a separate division of university economics departments.” (Alexeev et al., 1992, p. 139). We claim that this division between ideology and science had been mitigated and even suppressed in the early years of market transition, but gradually started to reproduce itself. And the current condition of Russian economic community replicates the Soviet-economics division in many respects.

In our view, at least two stages in the evolution of Russian economic thought in the process the capitalist transition could be outlined: 1) “Apprenticeship” stage. Fall of the USSR seemed to rid the former Soviet economists from all ideological blinkers and political pressure. The first result of the country’s openness policy in all spheres including the science was the great total strive to learn something new, previously unavailable. In economics this meant acquaintance with international (Western) theories and approaches. Outdated political economy was replaced by “economics”, and Russian economists had to study again, the majority of scholars – almost from the very beginning. Though during the Soviet times separate textbooks and monographs of Western scholars were translated and published in Russian (for example, Samuelson’s “Principles” or Keynes’s “General Theory”), not every person could get an access to these readings. That is why economists in capitalist Russia had to fully update their scientific background and learn not only new concepts within micro- and , but also new methodological apparatus and tools for data analysis. Even merited Soviet scholars were to become apprentices. It was a period of shaping some new structure that should have 7 substituted the Soviet practices in the areas of research, teaching and scientific communication. Russian economists had to adjust to the new reality and it was a personal challenge for every scholar.

As Joachim Zweynert summarizes this period: “Between 1990 and 1992 in Russian economic science there was a general striving toward a return to the international scientific community. Indeed, the years between 1992 and 1995 saw a rapidly increasing number of Russian editions of Western, mainly American, economic textbooks and the exploration of a range of different subjects drawn from Western literature. However, the liberal heyday proved to be rather short- lived” (Zweynert, 2018b).

2) “Rejection vs. acceptation” stage Many historians of thought claim that the most challenging and almost insolvable problem faced by Russian community of economists after the fall of the Soviet Union was its “division into adherents of modern economics and those who cling to a post-Soviet traditional political economy approach” (Zaostrovtsev, 2005, p. 20). That’s exactly what happened on the second stage. The community disintegrated and two camps emerged. One large group of scholars accepted the global (Western) principles and “rules of game” in economics. These economists started to do research at international standards, prepare for publishing their results in high-class journals and teach modern economics. This group concentrated primarily around newly created educational centers – Higher School of Economics and New Economic School.

The second group chose the strategy of rejection. “Imported” economic practices were claimed destructive and not applicable to Russian natural order and socio-cultural mentality. The most vivid example of such thinking is S. Kirdina-Chandlers’ book on X and Y matrices. Economists from this camp (basing around the Department of Political Economy of Lomonosov State University and economic institutions of the Russian Academy of Sciences – Institute of Economics and Institute of Economic Forecasting) fiercely criticized neoclassical orthodoxy (mainstream) and advocated the creation of unique Russian version of economic science, aimed at providing the national economy’s growth and more “country-specific” approaches in economic education. All in all, the formation of the second camp denoted the tendency towards the “restoration” of many features of the Soviet-style Marxist political economy.

Already by the end of 1990s most of Russian economists supported the necessity of political consolidation claiming that the government gaining more strength could provide the long- 8 awaited stable economic growth after almost a decade of transformational crisis. So two different camps in Russian economic thought converged on the basis of agreement over the reinforcement of government’ position in all senses. This convergence crashed very soon, already in the middle of a first decade of the new millennium. This period was marked with intensifying nationalist tendencies and opening of an important debate over the mobilization and expanding state inference vs. structural reforming. In the sphere of economic science new wave of harsh critique of Western economic theory emerged – mainly, in Rossiiski ekonomicheskii zhurnal (Russian Economic Journal) and journals

Unfortunately, such a divide is still present and can be characterized using various terminology: universalist vs. nationally-oriented view of economic science (Barnett, 2015) or outward- vs. inward-oriented thought styles (Zweynert, 2018b). In our opinion, this heterogeneity is not a totally new phenomena. We suppose that it is a bad institutional trap in our economics community which has its roots at least in the sphere of Soviet economics. The USSR disctinction between political economy and mathematical economics was reborn in the new shape: traditionalist (conservative) economics vs. globalized (progressive) economics.

As J. Zweynert puts it, “the relationship between imported (foreground) economic ideas and culturally and historically deeply rooted patterns of thought (background ideas) constitutes a major problem… The main problem of the Russian economic discourse today is the ongoing tension between conflicting patterns of thought which does not, and this is the decisive point, only reflect disagreements about certain postulates of theory within a common body of economic science. Rather, the tensions reflect fundamentally different patterns of thought…” (Zweynert, 2018b). These patterns of thought (thought styles, or thought collectives) could be generally called “political economy” and “economics”. He makes the following distinction: Political Economy Economics Methodology 1 Methodological collectivism / holism Methodological individualism Methodology 2 Economics as a social science, Economics as a science of the dialectics economic laws of society, isolating abstraction Purpose / aim of Various kinds of social missions: Material well-being of the economic activity Classless society / post-industrial individuals society, Russia’s return as a world power State / Economy Economic system as subordinated to the Economic system as a relatively relationship state and its purposes (see above) autonomous sphere of society Source: Zweynert, 2018b, Table 2.1

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Obviously, all the generalizations should be made with precaution, and Zweynert stresses it: “The adherents of political economy were either sticking to Soviet Political Economy or revived traditional Russian ideas. However, it would be exaggerating to say that this camp (which was far from homogenous) completely immunised itself against Western influences. Its representatives often integrated some Keynesian and institutionalist (usually stemming from original institutionalists) ideas into their thinking. This, however, did not change the nature of the socio-philosophical patterns their economic thinking was embedded in” (Zweynert, 2018b)

Fundamental methodological and theoretical distinctions between two camps coincide with divergent attitude towards state’s presence in an economy. In a publicist pieces this division has been frequently referred to as “liberals vs. gosudarstvenniki”. The latter Russian term describes adherents of state-led development, large investment projects and restrictions on private entrepreneurship.

Consider the following passage from Alexeev et al.: “Mathematical economics posed a threat to the hegemony of political economy, making confrontation between the two subdisciplines almost inevitable. The conflict has persisted until the present… More generally, political economists attacked their mathematical rivals on two grounds. First, they alleged that the mathematical approach was actually a smokescreen for the introduction of bourgeois economics and was therefore ideologically unacceptable to dogmatic Marxists. Second, they charged that mathematical economics was inapplicable to practical problems of the economy” (Alexeev et al., 1992, p. 143). Actually, this characterization may be applied to present-day sphere of economics in Russia. Old Soviet confrontation has been regenerated under new conditions. In the absence of national ideological dictate every economist may choose the scientific paradigm within which he/she will operate most productively. But in post-Soviet Russia the strategy of orientation at the global economic science can still be criticized, the sphere itself is dangerously diverged. Unfortunately, the following conclusion is still relevant today: “Unified community of economic scholars did not take shape in this country” (Avtonomov et al., 2002, p. 17) J. Zweynert’s resume is even more painful: already the period of mid-2000s “marks the end of any attempts of the political economy camp to reintegrate into the international scientific community. From now on, this camp openly rejected Western economics and explicitly returned to the ideational paths that had their beginnings in the thaw period of the Soviet Union. As empirical research shows, Russian economics today is not much more integrated into global economics than it was at the end of 1980s” (Zweynert, 2018b)

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In last years the second stage of evolution of post-Soviet Russian economic thought gradually shifted to the condition which could be described as a “tacit consensus”. Two camps now live independently, without (almost) any crossing interests, with their own conferences and totally divergent research and publishing strategies. Representatives of an alternative camp prefer not to respond to political economy camp’s critique. This situation is described by Leonid Grigoryev as co-existence of two economic discourses – one directed outwards and shaping Russian segment of the global science, the other is aimed at analyzing internal transformational problems of Russian economy, without any adherence to the modern mainstream techniques and incentives for preparation top peer-reviewed publications (Grigoryev, 2017). We suppose that this divergence impedes the formation of Russian economics as a part of global science. We check this issue within the empirical research conducted in section 4.

4. Russian economic thought: global context. The final issue is the identification of the degree of integration of Russian economists into the global scientific space. To fulfill this goal we run a quantitative analysis of publications of Russian scholars in top-25 economics journals from the IDEAS/RePEc ranking (see Appendix). The paper in a reputable journal with a high impact-factor is seen as main scientific outcome of a scholar in today’s world. That is why international dimension of the Russian economic thought can be easily explored through the lens of publishing activity at global level. Our bibliographic inquiry corroborates the results of a fundamental paper by Alexander Muravyev (Muravyev, 2011) where he used a dataset for 2000-2009 and showed that only a tiny part of Russian economic community really conducted a research at a truly international level. The same depressing conclusions could be drawn from the article by Libman and Zweynert (Libman, Zweynert, 2014) who proved that the majority of Russian candidates for the Doctor of Science in economics degree in 2007-2010 was almost completely unaware of advanced research techniques and present-day global scientific results in their fields.

Our analysis is built on the following procedure: for each journal from top-25 we search for Russian authors’ publications, taking into consideration volumes published in 2014-2018. A Russian economist in our research is a person who satisfies at least one of the following criteria: - Russian citizenship or Russia as a place of birth (if it’s mentioned in a CV) - Graduation from Russian university and/or obtaining Russian scientific degree (Candidate or Doctor of science regardless of the field). Then we distinguish between Russian economists working abroad (in foreign universities and research units) and scholars affiliated with Russian universities or worked only in Russia at the 11 moment of publication. Foreign authors working in Russia were excluded from the sample, even if they use Russian as a native language (i.e., Valery Charnavoki from New economic school). These could not be formally called Russian economists if they have other citizenships (including Ukrainian or Belarussian). Such approach may be subject to critique, of course, because one may claim that Russian economists are scholars who work in Russia regardless of citizenship (i.e., in this case Valery Charnavoki or Shlomo Weber from NES). But this is the question of methodological choice and the matter for other papers. I’ve also excluded scholars working outside departments of economics, finance, humanitarian sciences or business schools. For example, pure mathematicians can frequently publish technically intensive papers in specialized journals with some application to finance (i.e. Ilya Molchanov from University of Bern is a director of Institute of Mathematical Statistics and Actuarial Science, he published a paper “Applications of Random Set Theory in Econometrics” in the Annual Review of Economics, but since the author does not represent economic science, I discard this publication).

Finally, we compare the scientific productivity of Russian economists working abroad and domestically. To do that we simply count the amounts of Russian authors published in each journal from the sample. If there is a joint publication, we take into account all the authors. So we do not adjust for the amount of papers published by the same scholar. The results could be seen in a table below: Journal Publications of Publications of Total Names of economists from Russian Russian amount of Russian universities with economists from economists from publications affiliation (in parenthesis – Russian universities and of Russian the amount of papers) universities and research units economists research units outside Russia (I) + (II) (I) (II) QJE 3 2 5 Enikolopov (NES) Petrova (NES) Sonin (HSE) JEL 0 0 0 Economic Journal 2 5 7 Parakhonyak (HSE; 2) AEJ: Macro 0 5 5 RES 3 12 15 Obizhaeva (NES) Enikolopov (NES) Paltseva (NES) JPE 1 3 4 Sonin (HSE) Econometrica 5 16 21 Bogomolnaia (HSE) Sandomirskiy (HSE) Yanovskaya (HSE) Sonin (HSE) Obizhaeva (NES) Economic Policy 0 1 1

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AEJ: Applied 6 5 11 Yakovlev (NES) Enikolopov (NES; 2) Petrova (NES; 2) Sonin (HSE) AER 1 20 21 Markevich (NES) Journal of Finance 1 13 14 Makarov (NES) Review of Econ. 3 2 5 Bremzen (NES) and Stat. Suvorov (HSE) Markevich (NES) JEP 0 2 2 JEEA 1 7 8 Paltseva (NES) BPEA 0 1 1 Journal of Econ. 0 1 1 Growth Journal of Monet. 0 9 9 Econ. Journal of 0 31 31 Financial Econ. Annual Review of 0 3 3 Econ. IMF Econ. Review 0 2 2 Review of Fin. 0 12 12 Stud. AEJ: Policy 0 4 4 Journal of Intern. 5 8 13 Tarasov (HSE) Econ. Zakharenko (HSE) Kokovin (HSE) Kichko (HSE) Zhelododko (HSE and Novosibirsk, deceased) Journal of Human 0 0 0 Res. Journal of Labor 0 0 0 Econ. TOTAL 31 164 195

How to interpret the results? At least some findings could be outlined: Russian scholars – representatives of domestic universities during 2014-2018 published their papers in top-notch journals 31 time. All the economists with publications in top-25 represent only two institutions – New economic school and Higher School of Economics. This outcome is not surprising, if we have a look at RePEc ranking of Russian institutions, where HSE and NES hold two leading positions. Economists from HSE published 15 times, NES researchers – 16 times. Adjusting for several publications of one scholar, we find out that 19 Russian economists from domestic universities published in the most respectable journals. Among them 7 scholars

13 have more than 1 publication (leaders are Konstantin Sonin (4 papers), Ruben Enikolopov (4 papers) and Maria Petrova (3 papers)).

For the period of analysis, Russian economists from domestic universities did not have publications in 14 out of 25 high-class journals. If we adjust for some specific cases like Journal of Economic Literature and Journal of Economic Perspectives (which publish mostly invited papers), it will not change the situation much. It is necessary to stress that many of 19 economists from the list have more than one affiliation, and more frequently – with foreign university. We have assigned the domestic affiliation even if the scholar spends the majority of time working abroad (as it is the current case with Sonin and Petrova, for example). That is why the obtained result should be interpreted carefully: rupture of formal relations of any of such scholars with Russian university will distort the picture of international publishing performance.

Russian economists from foreign universities published 164 times, and this outcome could be predicted in advance. Working in English-speaking environment and being incomparably more embedded into the global science, it is much easier and more “ordinary” to have international publications in top journals. As was stressed by Barnett, “there is also an important connection with language: English has become the de facto global language in very recent times, thus giving the nations where English is the first language a potential advantage in their global reach” (Barnett, 2015, p. 5). At the moment we can state that if there exists something which could be called Russian economics, it is located first and foremost outside Russia. It’s not surprising to find that Russian-speaking scholars from leading U.S. and European universities contribute to the global science much more than scholars from Russia itself. Of course, objects of their research and analytical tools used differ greatly – in that sense the term “school of thought” in traditional meaning cannot be applied to them as well. But since there is still an ongoing trend in deepening globalization of economic science (contrary to the deglobalization in the world economy), scholars from Russian universities should have stimulus to burst through the ideological, linguistic and political obstacles and feel themselves a part of international community. Only in this case true development of economic thought is possible, and we will be able to speak about Russian economics in a contemporary, not conservative meaning. The increase in the number of Russian authors publishing internationally should become an important stage in transforming underdeveloped, atomized and disengaged community of economists into something more substantial. Divergent field of economics in Russia should be once replaced with consistent and cutting-edge Russian economics. But that will take place only when the

14 sphere of economics in the country overcomes the prejudices, nationalist tendencies and conservative legacies of the Soviet political economy.

5. Conclusion. 70 years ago, Alfred Zauberman wrote about the Soviet economic science: “The reader who crosses the East/West frontier in economic writing has to leave behind much of his usual professional luggage. He would find that the major part of his habitual box of tools would be of little, if any, use to him. His dexterity in applying the marginal analysis would be of no avail. He would have to forget his inclination to an equilibrium approach… He would be faced with declared hostility towards any micro-economic approach: any attitude, but the macro-economic is anti-social and therefore banned. Utility calculus is anathema. Great problems hotly debated in the West for the last two or three decades are only of remote interest to Soviet economists, as most of these questions refer to the market economy…” (Zauberman, 1948, p. 1)

If to change “Soviet economists” to “Russian economists”, lots of these impressions can still seem relevant, though exaggerated a bit. In general, the situation in Russian economic science cannot be compared to dark Stalin’s times: all modern research apparatus is available, there are no any prohibitions for choosing the suitable current of thought or formulating research questions. But many economists still partly or totally reject the global achievements and that is the principal problem. We will never be able to speak about Russian economics if only two Russian universities will have international publications in top-ranked journals. The solid community with widely accepted research principles is still to be created in the country.

Dani Rodrik in “Economics Rules” calls for model-driven style of thinking in economics, but insists that there are no universal economic models (Rodrik, 2015). And it is very close to truth. Such view corresponds with Vincent Barnett’s statement regarding the international and national dimension of economic science: “Economics is sometimes international in its methods and techniques, but simultaneously national in its uses and applications” (Barnett (ed.), 2015., p. 338). Yes, the national economy may and should be the object of research – especially if we speak about non-convenient market economies, but developing, catching-up and industrializing countries.

Of course, many theories and concepts elaborated in the so-called “West” (advanced market economies), especially regarding economic development and macroeconomic stabilization, should and could be subject to revision and modernization when applied to countries with 15 different institutions, political regimes and historical background. It became evident after the shortcomings of market transition in many post-socialist economies. But is should not be a process of total rejection of global economics and claiming of superiority of some “nationally- oriented” or “historically rooted” approaches in economic science. Economists in Russia should overcome ideological contradictions and have to agree on some basic principles of development of the scientific field. Russian community of economists evidently lacks a dialogue at the moment, that is why the term Russian economics cannot be attributable to it.

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Appendix. Top-25 economics journals according to IDEAS/RePEc Simple Impact Factors (last 10 Years; as of April 2019) 1) The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press 2) Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association 3) Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society 4) American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association 5) Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press 6) Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press 7) Econometrica, Econometric Society 8) Economic Policy, CEPR; CES; MSH 9) American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association 10) American Economic Review, American Economic Association 11) Journal of Finance, American Finance Association 12) The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press 13) Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association 14) Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association 15) Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, The Brookings Institution 16) Journal of Economic Growth, Springer 17) Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier 18) Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier 19) Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews 20) IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan; International Monetary Fund 21) Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies 22) American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association 18

23) Journal of International Economics, Elsevier 24) Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press 25) Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press

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