While Russia's budget surplus and gross domestic product have soared under President Vladimir Putin's stewardship, so too have corruption and cronyism. How stable is Russia's economy, and what should foreign investors expect in the coming year? How will the Kremlin's campaign to recapture the economy's "commanding heights" and its apparent abandonment of structural reforms affect long-term growth? Are Putin's declared goals of modernizing Russia's economy and raising living standards compatible with his moves to consolidate political power and subjugate the judicial system?

These and other questions will be the subject of an AEI panel discussion with Yegor T. Gaidar, architect of Russia's post-Communist economic transition, former prime minister under President Boris Yeltsin, and director of the Institute for the Economy in Transition. Other speakers include Anne Krueger, first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund; Jonathan Schiffer, vice president and senior credit officer in the Sovereign Risk Unit at Moody’s Investor Service; and Leon Aron, director of Russian studies at AEI. Desmond Lachman, resident scholar at AEI, will moderate.