30 years of economic reforms in the post-Soviet space: Macroeconomic processes

Abstract

The paper contains a retrospective analysis of macroeconomic policy and macroeconomic reforms in the post-Soviet countries in 1992—2021, that is, after obtaining political and economic independence at the end of 1991. Special attention is paid to the problems of macroeconomic stabilization and economic growth. As a result of structural distortions inherited from the Soviet economy and slow pace of economic and institutional reforms, the countries of the former Soviet Union suffered from the long and deep output decline in the 1990s, and their post-transition growth recovery in the 2000s did not last long. Furthermore, they remain vulnerable to both domestic and external economic shocks. Given a limited predictability of post-COVID global economic trends, this vulnerability will continue, most likely, in the next couple of years.