Several years ago, my co-authors and I constructed two models of Russia's virtual economy. The first one, constructed before the August 1998 default, explained why Russia's virtual economy could not be reformed by monetary policies, and why the stabilization could not be achieved. The second model constructed after the default, explained why the prices in roubles had not changed much after the default but the prices in money substitutes had doubled. I have received the Fulbright award and Zvi Griliches award for the best research paper of the year for these models. In 2000, the results were presented at a plenary talk at the international conference on Transition Economies (Moscow)

1. S.Boyarchenko and S.Levendorskii, Search-Money-and-Barter Models of Financial Stabilization, Working Paper Number 332, July 2000, The William Davidson Institute Working Paper Series, The William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan Business School.   pdf file

2. S.Boyarchenko, S.Levendorskii and S.Agapov, A three-sector model of Russia's Virtual Economy,  Working Paper Series of EERC, 02/06, 2002  pdf file