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Unter Räubern - Russland: Investitionsrisiko Unternehmensplünderungen
Why doesn’t Russia grow? While Russia’s economy still has a lot of potential, levels of investment and firm entry have been low and declining over the last couple of years. Even more so than international sanctions and declining oil prices, one of the main reasons for Russia’s adverse investment climate are adverse institutions. In this paper, we show that losing your firm through predatory raiding attacks by criminal groups or corrupt state agencies has remained a real risk throughout the last 15 years. Similarly, high levels of regulatory pressure by law enforcement agencies have remained a serious obstacle to entrepreneurs and investors. In the paper, we first describe the scope of the problem, and then analyze why despite repeated attempts the Kremlin has not been able to solve the issue.