Russian Senior Thesis Presentation

Malachi Price '17 (Russian Area Studies major modified with Economics) will be presenting his senior thesis titled "Choice or Destiny: The evolution of Economic Deficit Funding in the Post-Soviet States ad its Effect on Vulnerabilty to the 2008 Financial Crisis" on Friday, May 12 at 5 pm in Reed Hall room 108. Free and open to the public.  

Presentation Abstract: The dissolution of the USSR was marked by the emergence of twenty-two post-Soviet states that were united only by a vague mandate to privatize, liberalize, and integrate with the developed capitalist world. The diverse cultural, political, geographic, and economic conditions that these states inherited from their Communist and pre-Communist histories predicated the development of unequal access to the vast demand markets and capital pools of the global economy. The nature of these quantitatively and qualitatively varied connections defined the ways that the post-Soviet states funded consumption and expenditure during their transitions to modernity, catalyzing a divergence of economic trajectories in the late 1990s and early 2000s. However, these conduits of growth also served as channels of contagion during periods of international financial turmoil and particularly influenced the nations’ respective levels of vulnerability to the 2008 Financial Crisis and Recession. This presentation will explore the asymmetrical trade and financial structures developed by the post-Soviet states after 1989, as well as illustrating the nature and extent of their effects on GDP performance in the pre-crisis and crisis periods.