Property Rights and Property Wrongs: How Power, Institutions, and Norms Shape Economic Conflict in Russia

Secure property rights are central to economic development and stable government, yet difficult to create. Relying on surveys in Russia from 2000 to 2012, Timothy Frye examines how political power, institutions, and norms shape property rights for firms. Through a series of sophisticated survey experiments, Property Rights and Property Wrongs explores how political power, personal connections, elections, concerns for reputation, legal facts, and social norms influence property rights disputes from hostile corporate takeovers to debt collection to renationalization. This work looks beyond high profile cases of economic conflict and departs from the common view that property rights in Russia are uniformly weak and driven solely by personal connections. The result is a nuanced view of the political economy of Russia that contributes to central debates in economic development, comparative politics, and legal studies.