Economic Recentralization in Uzbekistan

Abstract

An American economist recently working in Uzbekistan examines that country's lackluster post-Soviet effort at economic reform and its consequences for economic performance. Focus is on the negative impacts of the government's suspension of currency convertibility in 1996 (and the consequent growth of a black market in foreign currency transactions), maintenance of price controls, and continued state intervention in microeconomic decision making. The paper also compares Uzbekistan's anomalous economic policy trajectory with that typical elsewhere in the world (in Subsaharan Africa, East Asia, Latin America, and former Soviet republics), offering explanations based on rent-seeking, external politics, state structure, and economic ideology.