Certain countries – certainly Russia – defy analysis because of the profound influence of one-off factors found nowhere else on earth. This provocative study claims to have found one: Russia is simply too cold. During the Cold War, Siberia was seen as strategic, with bountiful natural resources. So Soviet planners constructed cities deep in its frozen wastes.

The result is that on one key indicator – “temperature per capita” – Russia is an outlier on the global charts. In the eyes of Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy this is an impediment to economic growth on par with crony capitalism or oil dependence. These cold cities are profoundly uneconomic, draining more wealth than the value of the resources they extract. Yet the legacy is hard to undo – cities are hard to move, technologies hard to update. In essence, the authors argue that Russia’s size and shape are unsuited to economic success.