Decentralization of firms in a country with weak institutions: Evidence from Russia

The paper studies evidence from Russian firms to explore whether the decentralization of firms can be successful under weak institutions. The paper distinguishes between two strategies for decentralization of firms in an environment with weak institutions: decentralization of decision-making authority to professionals hired through open competition (real decentralization) and decentralization to people hired through connections (cautious decentralization). The paper argues that real decentralization has the potential to significantly improve the efficiency of firms and therefore can have economic payoff for firms even under weak institutions. However, the higher the distortionary effect of corruption on fair market competition in an environment with weak institutions, the lower the firms’ returns to being economically efficient. Therefore, the lower the returns to real decentralization, and, hence, the firms’ willingness to really decentralize. The empirical analysis presented in the paper demonstrates that really decentralized Russian firms are, on average, more successful compared to other firms in a range of activities: they are more likely to invest, to bring to the market innovative products that are new to the Russian or global market, and to export. The gap between really decentralized and other firms in the probability of investment and introduction of new products to the market is very substantial under low or moderate levels of corruption. However, the gap shrinks as corruption grows and disappears under very high levels of corruption. Correspondingly, real decentralization is less popular in Russian regions with higher corruption.