About the Project

The project is aimed at assessing the competitive advantages of Russian manufacturing firms on the domestic and global markets in a comparative perspective. We are creating a database on Russian firms comparable to the microeconomic databases of developed European countries. This will allow for comprehensive comparative research to be conducted on the firms’ ability to compete.

Until now, comparative analysis based on microeconomic databases was only possible for countries with transitional economies. Such projects include the World Bank’s Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS) and the Investment Climate Assessment (ICA).

Russia’s manufacturing industry is still the main potential source of economic growth, while the development of this industry, particularly in the post-crisis period of 2010-2014, is prone to stagnation and increased disparity between the competitive ability of Russian and foreign companies. This gap is connected with growing domestic problems in the sector and with the varied influence of globalization processes and regional integration. Experts also differ in their assessment of the state of the institutional environment for the development of business. Assessing the extent and causes behind the lag in Russian firms’ ability to compete at a global level is impossible without analyzing microeconomic data. This is because for the majority of sectors in the Russian manufacturing industry, high heterogeneity is characteristic for firms with respect to the efficient use of production elements.

Data from a microeconomic survey will allow for key theoretical concepts of competitive ability and company growth to be checked. The data will also help assess a firm’s ability to compete on the global market and to rely on local and global production systems. The opportunity is presented to compare Russian companies with more successful European firms from Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Hungary, Austria and Britain that are similar in structure and size. In addition, data attained from microeconomic research also provides the opportunity to see where competitive advantages are being spent and explain the reasons for the abnormally high level of homogeneity in Russian enterprises.