Laws for Sale: Evidence from Russia

Abstract

How does regulatory capture affect growth? We construct measures of the political power of firms and regional regulatory capture using micro-level data on the preferential treatment of firms through regional laws and regulations in Russia during the period 1992-2000. Using these measures, we find that: 1) politically powerful firms perform better on average; 2) a high level of regulatory capture hurts the performance of firms that have no political connections and boosts the performance of politically connected firms; 3) capture adversely affects small business growth and the tax capacity of the state; 4) there is no evidence that capture affects aggregate growth.

Keywords: Regulatory capture, institutional subversion, Russia, redistribution, special interest politics

JEL Classification: P26, P27, D71, D72