Big Players in Czarist Russia

Abstract

The contrasting policies of two Russian finance ministers, Nikolai Bunge and Ivan Vyshnegradsky, provide a case study in the Big Players effect. Bunge served from 1881 through 1886, Vyshnegradsky from 1887 through 1891.² Bunge was a strict rule-follower and thus not a Big Player. Vyshnegradsky was an interventionist and very much a Big Player in the international market for the ruble. Under Bunge’s regime, as we shall see, the ruble exchange rate fluctuated more narrowly than under Vyshnegradsky. The statistical results of this chapter and Chapter 9 suggest that Big Player effects were stronger under Vyshnegradsky.

This chapter is based on Koppl and Yeager (1996) and Broussard and Koppl (1999). Credit for the discovery of the historical episode in question goes entirely to Leland Yeager. Yeager is the principal author of the section of this chapter describing the episode. I am responsible for the R/S test. Broussard ran the GARCH analyses. The data examined in this chapter were collected from contemporary newspapers by Yeager.