Soviet Heritage and Export Trade - Cross-Country Evidence from Georgia, Russia and Ukraine
The dissolution of the Soviet system in 1991 caused an economic collapse in all the successor states of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The immediate consequence of the breakdown was the emergence of previously non-existent trade barriers. Further, economic and social instability spread and a huge proportion of the population in these countries sank into poverty. In the 1990s, most of the successors recorded a dramatic decline both in production and trade. Particularly the economies poor in resources still suffer the consequences of those events. It was not only the arbitrary distortion of trade relations, due to central planning, which required an adjustment of foreign trade relationships after 1991. To a greater degree, there was a country-specific reorientation in exports. However, for several decades, the integration in the economic space of the USSR has been essential for all these countries.
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