The Siberian Curse: How Communist Planners Left Russia Out in the Cold is a book written by Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy, two political scientists and fellows of the Brookings Institution in 2003.
Robert Legvold, reviewing the book for Foreign Affairs, said that the authors "argue well with ample data to back them up" that the Russian, and particularly Soviet, efforts to develop Siberia "have always been economic folly."
According to Legvold, the authors recommend that Russia try to draw its population to large urban areas in warmer regions, and treat Siberia as a "commodity-producing hinterland" akin to Northern Canada.
[1] In contrast, John Dolan, writing for The eXile, described the book as a "classic California-style real-estate scam" built on overly-simplistic "fake math" social science, aiming in his eyes to convince Russians that Siberia was worthless so that "corrupt developers" could buy it up at low prices.
He felt the authors were also trying to divert blame for Russia's economic woes onto Siberia and away from the more-rightful target of "incompetent, sleazy Western consultant[s]" like Jeffrey Sachs, whose endorsement of the book he described as self-serving.