The Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy (WAGE) is pleased to announce the winner of our WAGE Advanced Dissertation Spring 2009 Research Assistantship. 

"Fast Food, Market Institutions, and Shifting Governance in Russia's Agri-food Sector"

Berman explores how the forces of economic globalization affect the development of market institutions in contemporary Russia’s agri-food sector. The project considers how the demands of fast food corporations, and the methods used to ensure they are met, reshape business networks, quality standards and production practices throughout their supply chains. Using comparative case studies, her dissertation will address: (1) how fast food companies make use of and alter the market institutions they encounter in Russia’s post-Soviet transformation; (2) the degree to which the imposition of corporate standards represents a shift in the locus of governance from the state to the market; and (3) whether relationships between U.S. and Russian businesses result in convergence on an American model of capitalism.