Commitment devices, opportunity windows, and institution building in Central Asia



Year

Source: Heritage Foundation (2008). Note: No data available for Central Asian countries prior to 1997.

Fig. 1: Institutional Quality 1995 - 2006

close to CEEC levels, even though CEEC were starting off at a much higher level. Particularly,
the Kyrgyz Republic, Taijikistan, and Kazakhstan show a significant upward trend after 2001
and became the most dynamic reformers in the group, while Turkmenistan and, to some extend,
Uzbekistan are still lagging behind. Leaving aside Turkmenistan, all Central Asian countries
show some co-movements with Russia and their surrounding countries in Central and Eastern
Europe. This may suggest that factors that are common to either Central Asia and Russia or
Central Asia and CEEC have driven the reform process.

Although, most Central Asian countries show signs of institutional changes in recent years
according to Figure 1, it is important to understand factors that cause persistence of lumpy
institutions in order to ensure that the reform process will be continued and not be reversed.

Several authors have discussed factors behind the persistence of institutional arrangements
(cf. International Monetary Fund (IMF, 2005) for an overview).

The most prominent argument why bad policies persist is that the polity has control over
economic rents from natural resources such as crude oil (cf. Sachs and Warner, 2001; Ross,
2001; Sala-i-Martin and Subramanian, 2003; Ramsay, 2006). Access to these rents pose a
disincentive for political and economic elites to reform institutions, as (tax) earnings from other
economic sectors, which would need sound institutional frameworks for their development, pale
in insignificance (Rajan and Zingales, 2006; Congdon Fors and Olsson, 2007). Moreover, poor



More intriguing information

1. Smith and Rawls Share a Room
2. The name is absent
3. If our brains were simple, we would be too simple to understand them.
4. Altruism with Social Roots: An Emerging Literature
5. Group cooperation, inclusion and disaffected pupils: some responses to informal learning in the music classroom
6. Competition In or For the Field: Which is Better
7. Measuring and Testing Advertising-Induced Rotation in the Demand Curve
8. The name is absent
9. Detecting Multiple Breaks in Financial Market Volatility Dynamics
10. The geography of collaborative knowledge production: entropy techniques and results for the European Union
11. Reform of the EU Sugar Regime: Impacts on Sugar Production in Ireland
12. Thresholds for Employment and Unemployment - a Spatial Analysis of German Regional Labour Markets 1992-2000
13. The name is absent
14. The name is absent
15. Meat Slaughter and Processing Plants’ Traceability Levels Evidence From Iowa
16. What Lessons for Economic Development Can We Draw from the Champagne Fairs?
17. The Effects of Reforming the Chinese Dual-Track Price System
18. Estimating the Economic Value of Specific Characteristics Associated with Angus Bulls Sold at Auction
19. BARRIERS TO EFFICIENCY AND THE PRIVATIZATION OF TOWNSHIP-VILLAGE ENTERPRISES
20. The name is absent