Internationalization of post-Soviet Economists: Evidence from Central Asia and the Caucasus

After the collapse of socialism, post-Soviet republics needed new economists equipped with the intellectual requirements of a new economic order based on private property and market mechanisms. To this end, they reorganized economics curricula, published new textbooks, and trained students and academics in their home countries or in the West. In all of these efforts, unlike during the old era, the new republics cooperated closely with international organizations. This leads to the question, addressed here, of how these efforts changed the quantity and quality of international publications of post-Soviet economists.The results of this study show that in the ex-Soviet Central Asian and Caucasian (CAC) countries, the number of international publications increased gradually. Results also indicate that publications usually concern regional issues and are published in low impact journals. The preference of CAC economists for Russian language journals implies that language is still a barrier to publication in international journals. Finally, cooperation with Westerners and Western institutions is found to contribute positively to the publication performance of post-Soviet economists.