nep-cis New Economics Papers
on Confederation of Independent States
Issue of 2017‒01‒22
fourteen papers chosen by



  1. Money Versus the Soul: Neoliberal Economics in the Education Modernisation Reform of Post-Soviet Russia By Elena V. Minina
  2. The Effect of Labor Migration on the Diffusion of Democracy: Evidence from a Former Soviet Republic By Toman Barsbai; Hillel Rapoport; Andreas Steinmayr; Christoph Trebesch
  3. Political influence, firm performance and survival By Sokolov, Vladimir; Solanko, Laura
  4. Russian import restrictions and their effects on the agricultural sectors of the CCA countries By Bulatov, Dmitry
  5. Reforming and Restructuring Ukrzaliznytsia: A Crucial Task for Ukrainian Reformers By Pittman, Russell
  6. A Survey of Progress and Pitfalls with the Eurasian Economic Union By Meyers, William H.
  7. Military expenditures and shadow economy in the Baltic States: Is there a link? By Fedotenkov, Igor; Schneider, Friedrich
  8. Fall in International Energy Prices and its Impact on AgrifoodTrade in Post-Soviet Countries By Mogilevskii, Roman
  9. Economic contraction and food insecurity in the post-Soviet region By Sedik, David
  10. The Impact of Kyrgyzstan’s Accession to the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) on the Structure of Kyrgyz Consumer Demand – A Preliminary Assessment – By Adiiaeva, Chinara; Grings, Michael
  11. The Organization of Contracting and Quality Control in Dairy Supply Chains in Kyrgyzstan By Saak, Alexander
  12. The impact of migrant remittances on economic development of the Kyrgyz Republic By Zhunusova, Eliza
  13. ВЛИЯНИЕ ИЗМЕНЕНИЯ КЛИМАТТИЧЕСКИХ ПОКАЗАТЕЛЕЙ НА УРОЖАЙНОСТЬ ЗЕРНОВЫХ В КОСТАНАЙСКОЙ ОБЛАСТИ By Балабайкин, Владимир
  14. Fuel to Food: Evidence of Price Pass-through in Kyrgyzstan By Ilysov, Jarilkasin

  1. By: Elena V. Minina (National Research University Higher School of Economics)
    Abstract: Through the examination of the concept of ‘commercial service’ the article explores the ideological underpinnings and cultural embeddings of the market economy in post-Soviet education modernisation reform vis-a-vis the makeup of indigenous Russian culture and pedagogy. While post-Soviet Russia’s educational sector has been extensively commercialised, the public attitude towards the new educational economics have remained largely antagonistic. By bringing together the economic and the ideological angles, I show how bottom-up resistance is maintained and normalised, triggering a policy backlash. The article probes the obstinate public resistance to the idea of education as a ‘commodity’ and exposes the cultural logic behind it. Drawing on discourse studies and policy borrowing frameworks, the analysis demonstrates how the market values of competitive individualism, material profit and entrepreneurship were left under-conceptualised in the official discourse and consequently rejected in the public discourse in favour of domestic values of egalitarianism, collegiality, moral education, and an orientation towards non-materialist values
    Keywords: Russian education reform post-Soviet education, neoliberalism, education commercialisation
    JEL: Z
    Date: 2016
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:39edu2016&r=cis
  2. By: Toman Barsbai; Hillel Rapoport; Andreas Steinmayr; Christoph Trebesch
    Abstract: Migration contributes to the circulation of goods, knowledge, and ideas. Using community and individual-level data from Moldova, we show that the emigration wave that started in the aftermath of the Russian crisis of 1998 strongly affected electoral outcomes and political preferences in Moldova during the following decade, eventually contributing to the fall of the last Communist government in Europe. Our results are suggestive of information transmission and cultural diffusion channels. Identification relies on the quasi-experimental context and on the differential effects arising from the fact that emigration was directed both to more democratic Western Europe and to less democratic Russia.
    Keywords: Emigration;Political institutions;Elections;Social networks;Information transmission;Cultural diffusion
    JEL: F22 D72 O1
    Date: 2016–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cii:cepidt:2016-26&r=cis
  3. By: Sokolov, Vladimir; Solanko, Laura
    Abstract: We examine how regional-level political influence affects firm financial performance and survival. Combining representative survey data on mid-sized manufacturing firms in Russia with official registry data, we find that politically influential firms exhibit higher profitability and retain larger financial investments than non-influential firms. At the same time, we find no association between regional political influence and access to bank lending. Most importantly, our empirical analysis suggests that the benefits of influence may be transient. Influential firms experienced significantly lower growth during our 2004–2010 sample period than non-influential firms. Moreover, influential firms had a significantly higher probability of going bankrupt after the 2008 global financial crisis than non-influential firms.
    JEL: D22 D72 G38
    Date: 2016–12–22
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bof:bofitp:2016_020&r=cis
  4. By: Bulatov, Dmitry
    Abstract: The selected paper presented at the IAMO Samarkand Conference
    Keywords: International Development, International Relations/Trade,
    Date: 2016–11–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iamc16:250068&r=cis
  5. By: Pittman, Russell
    Abstract: If the Ukrainian economy is to be successfully restructured going forward, a restructured railway system will have to be part of the picture. Ukraine’s economy depends on the production and sale of a number of bulk commodities, including coal, iron ore, steel, and agricultural products, that require shipment by rail in order to reach both domestic and export markets economically. In this paper we first discuss in more detail the crucial role that UZ plays in the Ukrainian economy. We follow with a survey of the world experience with railways restructuring: a large number of countries have already undertaken the task of converting aging government-owned monopoly railways into more dynamic and competitive transport enterprises, and their experience in very diverse settings may have important lessons to offer. We then examine the current state of rail reform plans in Ukraine. We conclude with discussions of an alternative path forward that seems most likely to be successful in Ukraine, based on both the experience elsewhere and the country’s current situation.
    Keywords: Ukrainian Railways (Ukrzaliznytsia), railways, reform, restructuring, vertical separation, horizontal separation, competition, investment
    JEL: L43 L92 P31 R42
    Date: 2016–12–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:76028&r=cis
  6. By: Meyers, William H.
    Keywords: Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade,
    Date: 2016–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iats16:252426&r=cis
  7. By: Fedotenkov, Igor; Schneider, Friedrich
    Abstract: The main goal of our paper is to determine the existence of a link between government (military) expenditures and the shadow economy in the Baltic States. The empirical investigation is done over the years 2003-2014 for Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. We showed that there is a highly statistically significant positive dependence between the size of the shadow economy and military expenditures in the Baltic States. Our conclusion is that higher military expenditures indeed lead to a higher shadow economy and this result is robust to different model specifications. In order to demonstrate the importance of our highly statistically significant results we undertook a simulation where we calculated how much the size of the shadow economy would increase if the size of military expenditure as a percentage of GDP doubled: In Estonia such an expansion would have led to an increase in the size of the shadow economy from 27.1% to 30.1%, in Latvia from 24.7% to 26.1% and in Lithuania from 27.1% to 28.4% in 2014.
    Keywords: Shadow economy, military expenditures, Baltic States
    JEL: E26 E62 H26 H50 H56 O17
    Date: 2017–01–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:76194&r=cis
  8. By: Mogilevskii, Roman
    Abstract: The selected paper presented at the IAMO Samarkand Conference
    Keywords: Demand and Price Analysis, International Development, International Relations/Trade,
    Date: 2016–11–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iamc16:250071&r=cis
  9. By: Sedik, David
    Abstract: The selected paper presented at the IAMO Samarkand Conference
    Keywords: Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Security and Poverty, International Development,
    Date: 2016–11–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iamc16:250072&r=cis
  10. By: Adiiaeva, Chinara; Grings, Michael
    Abstract: The selected paper presented at the IAMO Samarkand Conference
    Keywords: International Development, International Relations/Trade, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,
    Date: 2016–11–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iamc16:250076&r=cis
  11. By: Saak, Alexander
    Abstract: The selected paper presented at the IAMO Samarkand Conference
    Keywords: Livestock Production/Industries, Production Economics,
    Date: 2016–11–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iamc16:250087&r=cis
  12. By: Zhunusova, Eliza
    Abstract: The selected paper presented at the IAMO Samarkand Conference
    Keywords: Agricultural Finance, International Development, International Relations/Trade,
    Date: 2016–11–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iamc16:250081&r=cis
  13. By: Балабайкин, Владимир
    Abstract: The selected paper presented at the IAMO Samarkand Conference
    Keywords: Crop Production/Industries, Production Economics,
    Date: 2016–11–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iamc16:250092&r=cis
  14. By: Ilysov, Jarilkasin
    Abstract: The selected paper presented at the IAMO Samarkand Conference
    Keywords: Crop Production/Industries, Demand and Price Analysis, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,
    Date: 2016–11–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iamc16:250086&r=cis

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