Citation
Lazareva, Olga (2004). Adjusting boundaries of Russian firms. EERC Working Paper Series No. 04/08.Abstract
During the last decade we witnessed huge wave of reorganizations in Russian industrial sector: split-ups, spin-offs, mergers and acquisitions. Firms adjusted their boundaries according to the new economic conditions. Little is known however about this process and its determinants. The first goal of this paper is to derive general patterns of boundary change in Russian industrial sector. Second, the author seeks to identify the factors influencing firm’s decision to integrate or split up based on modern theory of a firm. In doing this, one needs to understand whether institutional structure of production, inherited from planned economy and characterized by high degree of monopolization andspecificity, influenced the process of reorganizations of Russian industrial firms. In particular, author tests the factors of vertical integration suggested by transaction cost theory. Finally, the attempt is made to estimate the effect of structural change on firm performance, in particular, on productivity. In order to answer these questions the author conducts empirical study using the data from the survey of Russian industrial enterprises carried out in 1999-2000.