The book «Russia, the Long View» by Egor Gaidar is economic history on the grand scale, reaching back into the Neolithic and forward to the present day. There have been several books of similar scope published in recent years, but none informed by Marxist dialects and the particular perspective afforded by the view from Russia. In my remarks today I want to focus on the insights which that perspective and the Marxist tradition can offer to economists and economic historians alike. The Russian perspective is like one of those maps of the world that puts the country that published it in the middle. There are advantages to that perspective, because Russia’s history has an internal coherence that provides a unique perspective on the history of economic growth, and it is always a good idea to look at old things from a new viewpoint.
Key words: economic history, Russia, Russia’s history, economic growth.

George Grantham, D. Phil. (Econ.), associate professor, McGill University, Department of Economics
(845 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, H3A 2T5).
E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

This paper deals with a retrospective analysis of the causes and consequences of the relative decline of the British economy in the 1970s, which led to a complete loss of its competitiveness in relation to the rest of the western industrial world. It is argued that the main factors of the «British disease» were not only external reasons — world crisis, stagflation and structural changes in economic development, — but primarily domestic ones — weak productivity, deficiencies of the educational system, antagonistic industrial relations, mistakes in post-war economic policy and an archaic system of political and social institutions.
Key words: Great Britain, economic policy, welfare state, crisis, stagflation, deindustrialization.

Sergey Nevskiy, Cand. Sci. (Econ.), associate professor, Department of Economic History, Faculty of Economics, Lomonosov Moscow State University (1, bld 46, Leninskie Gory, Moscow, 119991, Russian Federation).
E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Literacy in Russian Federation came with Christianity in the XX century, but to the XVIII century it evolved very slowly, notably lagging behind Western Europe. Since the beginning of the XVIII century. Influenced by the beginning of modernization, the government has made significant efforts to promote education in the country through a network of educational institutions. However, the lack of serious motivation from the peasantry can not significantly raise the cultural level of the population up to the middle of the XIX century. Only with the abolition of serfdom and a series of major reforms in the 1860s and as the deployment of the Industrial Revolution and urbanization in the second half of the XIX century the interest in literacy in the population awakens. As a result, it begins to grow quite rapidly and by 1917 up achieved 42%. In Soviet times, this trend has continued in the late 1950s. Literacy has become universal, and by 1991 the country’s cultural capital has reached significant proportions and has become one of the most powerful in the world. Thanks to that Russian Federation has entered into the post-Soviet period of its history, with a huge cultural capital, at first glance, little back from western neighbors. However, the desired effects of using cultural is not yet possible because of institutional checks.
Key words: literacy, modernization, abolition of serfdom, reforms in the 1860s, cultural capital.

Boris Mironov, Dr. Sci. (History), professor, St. Petersburg State University
(11, Universitetskaya Nab., St. Petersburg, 119034, Russian Federation).
E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

The article analyses a history of World’s Expositions as an element of global industrial expansion and as a factor of innovations diffusion during the Second Technological Revolution. World’s Expositions’s relevancy to registration of international patent system in a context of productivity improvements and institutional transformations is outlined.
Key words: oceanic civilization, Second Technological Revolution, World’s Expositions, structural changes, institutional transformations, international patent system.

George Gloveli,  Dr. Sci. (Econ.), professor, Department of Theoretical Economics, Department of Economic Methodology and History, National Research University — Higher School of Economics
(26, bld. 4, Shabolovka ul., Moscow, 119049, Russian Federation).
E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

This article presents economic globalization and its evidence. The author justifies objectivity of this phenomenon, also within historical context. He states, that theoretical apprehension of globalization processes started exactly with investigating globalization of economic sphere. The author points out to the demonstration of globalization in macro and microeconomic level.
Key words: economic globalization, the world system, informational and global economics, stimulation of the world trade, internationalization of manufacturing, global infra­structure.

Manir Khalikov,  Dr. Sci. (Soc. Sci.), Department of Economic Sociology and Marketing, Faculty of Sociology, Lomonosov Moscow State University (1, bld 33, Leninskie Gory, Moscow, 119991, Russian Federation).
E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

The discussion on results of study by Russian Federationn Presidential Academy of National Economy devoted to consequences of weak competition is presented. There are issues of general approach, particularities and results of estimates in specific areas (gas, rail freight, house building, pharmaceuticals, import) under discussion. Authors of the report, representatives of editorial body of “Economic policy” journal and other experts had participated in discussion.
Key words: antitrust, competition, gas, rail freight, house building, pharmaceuticals, ­import.

This paper is concerned with the conceptual foundations of the theory of economic ­competition, and with the effect thereon of a new solution concept borrowed from the mathematical theory of games. We consider three basic principles of distribution in an economic society-pure competition, coalitional power, and fair division and show how they lead to three different ideas of what might constitute the “solution” of a mathematical model of the marketplace. Two of these solutions, the competitive equilibrium and the core, have been found to be intimately related, despite sharp differences in heuristic interpretation. Our present purpose is to introduce to economic analysis the third of these solutions, the value of the game, and to compare and contrast it with the other two. Like the core, the value solution presupposes that the market is a collusive, multi-person game. The value solution, however, looks for a unique, equitable compromise among all opposing interests, whereas the core merely delimits a “no man’s land” between unyielding coalitions. The competitive equilibrium, for its part, recognizes no collusion at all. But when the number of traders is large, it can nevertheless be shown under rather general conditions that all three varieties of solution come into agreement, predicting the same outcome, but for ­different reasons.
Key words: competitive equilibrium, core, value of the game.

Lloyd Shapley, Rand Corporation
Martin Shubik, Yale University

In submitting to the judgment of the public that portion of the present volume which relates to the economic aspects of the Gold Question we are desirous at the outset to guard ourselves against two possible misapprehensions. In the first place we desire it to be understood that the question discussed in the Essays on that subject is, not the gold discoveries and their consequences, but the much narrower one involved in the economic effects of the increased supplies of gold. The two problems, though to some extent mutually implicated, are substantially distinct. To the one belongs the impulse given to the movement of population, which has resulted in the rapid peopling and definitive settlement of districts that without this stimulus might long have continued the slow and chequered career which up to that time had characterized their march, together with all the social and political consequences which have flowed from that movement both in Europe and in the scenes of the discoveries; to the other, the effects resulting from the increased abundance of money on the industry and trade of nations and the fortunes of individuals: and it is to the ­solution of this latter problem alone that the Essays on the Gold Question are addressed.
Key words: Gold Question, economic effects of the increased supplies of gold, movement of population, effects resulting from the increased abundance of money on the industry and trade of nations.

John Cairnes (1823—1875), the British economist.