The Payments Crisis in Russia: What Is Really Going On?

Abstract

Following the liberalization of prices in 1992, the failure of enterprises to make payments to one another became one of the central problems. While nonpayments existed even before the reforms, in an economy of scarcity they were centrally eliminated through mutually balanced accounts and subsidies and did not attract attention. But when the practice of shifting the problems of individual enterprises to the State's shoulders was discontinued, nonpayments became an indicator of the degree of their adaptation to market-economy conditions.