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on Confederation of Independent States |
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Issue of 2015‒12‒01
fourteen papers chosen by |
| By: | Matytsin,Mikhail; Moorty,Lalita M.; Richter,Kaspar |
| Abstract: | Do regions with higher working age populations grow faster? This paper examines this question using data from Russian regions and finds evidence that demographic trends influence regional growth convergence. In other words, keeping other factors constant, poorer regions grow faster than richer regions, and some of the growth convergence is explained by demographic changes: faster growth in poor regions in the past was related in part to more favorable demographic trends. This finding has important consequences for Russia. If the demographic trends in poorer regions worsen in the future, this could dampen economic convergence. Unless there are significant increases in labor productivity or additions to the labor force through migration, growth in Russian regions will moderate as the Russian population shrinks and ages in the coming decades. |
| Keywords: | Pro-Poor Growth,Population Policies,Regional Economic Development,Emerging Markets,Demographics |
| Date: | 2015–11–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7501&r=cis |
| By: | Natalia V. Alferova (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Anna V. Tarasenko (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Throughout history Chinese artistic culture has developed a fairly complex system of diverse art forms and styles. Chinese export art, being created particularly to satiate constantly growing appetite of the Western world for Chinese goods, holds a specific place among them. In spite of being considered as insignificant in terms of artistic merits, nevertheless, Chinese export painting succeeded to cover a modest segment in the European market in the XVIII – XIX centuries. Unlike most other types of Chinese decorative and applied arts, Chinese export painting until recently has never been taken as a subject of scientific research. The collection of the National Library of Russia possesses a number of Chinese painting albums. Comprehensive study of these art works might bridge lacunas for research of other multitudinous kinds of Chinese export arts and crafts of the XVIII-XIX centuries |
| Keywords: | Chinese export painting, 19th century China, collection of the National Library of Russia, Canton, watercolors on pith, Tetrapanax papirifer , wove paper, laid paper, Whatman. |
| JEL: | Z19 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:112hum2015&r=cis |
| By: | Yuriy O. Gaivoronskiy (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | The research is dedicated to the analysis of the relation between political competition that measured as the sum total of the electorate competition and the consolidation of the elite, as well as of the effectiveness of the fulfillment of the social and economic responsibilities of the regional authorities. The results of the analysis show that though the influence of the political competition within hybrid Russian regional political regimes is significant, it lacks some definite direction, as well as shows itself very selectively (mostly in health service and budgetary management) and is based upon weak social links, which is quite typical for partly institutionalized feedback and socio-political control channels |
| Keywords: | political competition, subnational political regimes, efficiency, Russian regions. |
| JEL: | D72 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:28/ps/2015&r=cis |
| By: | Vinokurov, Evgeny; Demidenko, Mikhail; Pelipas, Igor; Tochitskaya, Irina; Shymanovich, Gleb; Lipin, Andrey |
| Abstract: | After the establishment of the Customs Union (CU) and the Single Economic Space (SES), Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia have repeatedly stated the need to eliminate exemptions, limitations, and barriers to mutual trade in goods and services. This report represents the first stage of a study on the economic impact of reduction within the SES and the emerging Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) of non-tariff barriers (NTBs) to trade among Member States. It gives an overview of works on the definition and classification of NTBs, and the quantitative assessment and calculation of the economic effects of NTBs reduction. The report also presents the results of surveys and interviews with enterprises and companies of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia that export goods and services to the markets of the CU and EEU. These surveys and interviews revealed respondents’ views on the NTBs they face when exporting to each of the partner states. They also obtained quantitative estimates of NTBs as a percentage of the value of exported goods, which made it possible to estimate the costs of each of the NTBs to the enterprises. |
| Keywords: | Non-Tariff Barriers; Enterprises; Eurasian Economic Union; Trade; Single Economic Space |
| JEL: | F02 F1 F15 F4 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:68060&r=cis |
| By: | Olga V. Kotomina (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Knowledge intensive business services (KIBS) are characterized by high concentration in large urban areas due to the presence of more developed infrastructure, higher human capital development, proximity to the large customer, etc. However, companies in the KIBS sector have potential for development (new knowledge, experience) in collaboration with agents located in other regions. This paper is focused on the spatial aspects of the knowledge intensive business services sector in Russia. The study is based on a unique empirical data from mass surveys of Russian producers and consumers of KIBS. Comparative analysis of the incoming and outgoing flows of KIBS in Russian regions helps us to classify federal districts by their involvement in KIBS exchange, and to map the intensity of these flows. We have identified regions that are actively involved in both the purchase of services and their delivery outside the regional boundaries (Volga and Central Districts); active regions of consumption with an average level of production (Northwestern and Siberian Districts); and the passive regions, who are only weakly involved in inter-regional exchange of knowledge intensive business services (Ural and Southern Federal Districts) |
| Keywords: | Knowledge intensive business services, spatial proximity, spatial development, interregional cooperation. |
| JEL: | O18 R11 R12 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:50sti2015&r=cis |
| By: | Kinnunen, Jyri (BOFIT); Martikainen, Minna (BOFIT) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we explore a relation between expected returns and idiosyncratic risk. As in many emerging markets, investors in the Russian stock market cannot fully diversify their portfolios due to transaction costs, information gathering and processing costs, and short-comings in investor protection. This implies that investors demand a premium for idiosyncratic risk – unique asset-specific risk plays a role in investment decisions. We estimate the price of idiosyncratic risk using MIDAS regressions and a cross-section of Russian industry portfolios. We find that idiosyncratic risk commands an economically and statistically significant risk premium. The results remain unaffected after controlling for global pricing factors and short-term return reversal. |
| Keywords: | idiosyncratic risk; industry risk; cross-sectional returns; MIDAS; Russia |
| JEL: | G12 |
| Date: | 2015–10–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:bofitp:2015_030&r=cis |
| By: | Vinokurov, Evgeny; Demidenko, Mikhail; Pelipas, Igor; Tochitskaya, Irina; Shymanovich, Gleb; Lipin, Andrey; Movchan, Veronika |
| Abstract: | The report provides the first comprehensive assessment of the effects of non-tariff barriers on mutual trade in the EEU and gives recommendations as to how to remove them. It is based on a poll of 530 Russian, Kazakh and Belarusian exporters. In the research non-tariff barriers are divided into two groups. The first group includes non-tariff barriers such as sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers to trade, quotas, prohibitions, and quantitative controls. The second group comprises price and competition controls (the institute of “special importers,” sale restrictions, restrictions on public procurement, various subsidies). The second group of barriers is often referred to as “sand in the wheels,” because it hinders the movement of goods and in principle can be fully removed. The authors have come to a conclusion that this very group of barriers possesses a more negative influence on trade. Therefore, the main policy efforts should be directed at removing “sand in the wheels” of mutual trade. |
| Keywords: | Non-Tariff Barriers; Trade; Eurasian Economic Union; Econometrics |
| JEL: | F02 F1 F15 F4 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:68058&r=cis |
| By: | Edward F. Baranov (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Igor A. Kim (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Dmitri I. Piontkovski (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Elena A. Staritsyna (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Time series of Input-Output (IO) accounts at current and constant prices are widely applied to study the dynamics and structure of economic activity within country and conduct cross-country comparisons and analyses of globalization processes as well as their impacts. For these purposes IO accounts have to adhere to a uniform nomenclature of products and economic activities in accordance with international standards. Unfortunately, Russian statistics currently do not satisfy this condition. The first Russian IO accounts for 2011, built in accordance with international standards, will be published only at the end of 2015 (previously published tables for 1995-2003 were built in the classifications "inherited" from the Soviet period). The IO accounts for 2012 and subsequent years will be built by extrapolating the cost structure of products and services for 2011. However, it leaves the open question of extending the time series of these tables for the retrospective period prior to 2011. As international experience shows, this type of calculation was predominantly conducted by research organizations and universities. Given this, the National Research University Higher School of Economics has been developing a methodology for constructing a retrospective time series of a part of the IO accounts (use tables and valuation matrices) from 2010, in order to experimentally test them, and apply them to the official IO accounts for 2011. The following results were obtained from our study. First, we proposed a two-step procedure to transform IO accounts for 2003 from the Soviet into the OKVED/OKPD classifications. Second, we used a two-stage biproportional method generalizing the RAS procedure to construct a time series of IO accounts for the subsequent period using the 2003 transformed IO accounts as the starting point. Finally, we recalculated a part of the IO accounts (use tables) at the previous year prices. |
| Keywords: | Input-Output Accounts, Soviet classifications, NACE rev.1, CPA, time series, RAS, matrix balancing |
| JEL: | C82 D57 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:108/ec/2015&r=cis |
| By: | Koenig, Christoph (Department of Economics University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | Election fraud is a pervasive feature of autocracies but often only serves lower-tier officials to cast signals of loyalty or competence to the central government in order to pursue their own interests. How much such personal interests matter for electoral fraud under autocracy has however not been studied so far. In this paper, I exploit a radical policy change in Russia which allowed the president to replace governors of the country’s 89 regions at his own will. As a result, federal elections after December 2004 were organised by two types of governors: one was handpicked by the president, the other one elected before the law change and re-appointed. Even though both types faced removal in case of bad results, the need to signal loyalty was much lower for the first type. In order to estimate the e.ect of handpicked governors on electoral fraud, I use a diff-in-diff framework over 7 federal elections between 2000 and 2012. For this time period, I use results from about 95,000 voting stations to construct a new indicator of suspicious votes for each region and election. I show that this indicator correlates strongly with incidents of reported fraud. My baseline estimates show that in territories with a handpicked governor the share of suspicious votes decreased on average by more than 10 percentage points and dropped even further if the region’s economy had done well over the past legislature. These findings suggest that governors have less need to use rigging as a signal once loyalty is assured unless faced with circumstances raising doubts about their competence. |
| JEL: | P16 P26 D72 D73 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:warwec:1080&r=cis |
| By: | Olga Stognieva (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | In order to plan lessons that include effective instructional strategies, it is critical for teachers to be aware of student aptitudes, personality variables, learning strategies, interests, aspirations and talents. This paper presents a way for Russian teachers to improve their student’s speaking abilities when learning foreign languages, called individualised resources, which are based on the concept of individualisation. Individualised resources are designed to help students to actively participate in the learning process, contribute to their productivity of learning and compensate for missing abilities when mastering foreign languages. In order to verify the effectiveness of this educational tool, qualitative and quantitative indicators were applied to experimental teaching. The findings illustrate how the approach enhanced the students’ speaking abilities in terms of purposefulness, richness of speech content and logical progression of speech. We concluded that the students’ mastering of these qualities, using individualized resources, did improve and that this type of training is sufficient to shape speaking skills when teaching English. |
| Keywords: | individualisation, individualised resources, qualities of oral statement, aptitudes, learning strategies, personality variables. |
| JEL: | Z |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:113hum2015&r=cis |
| By: | Yoshino, Naoyuki (Asian Development Bank Institute); Abidhadjaev, Umid (Asian Development Bank Institute) |
| Abstract: | The objective of this paper is to examine the nature and magnitude of the effects of infrastructure provision on regional economic performance. The empirical evidence of our analysis is based on difference-in-difference estimation linking the changes in the growth rate of regional-level economic outcomes in affected regions to the newly built railway connection in the southern part of Uzbekistan, conditioned on the regions’ time-invariant individual effects, time-varying covariates, and evolving economic characteristics. To explore the differential nature of infrastructure provision, we employ an estimation examining regional, spillover, and connectivity effects from the railway connection, as well as the anticipation, launch, and postponed effects of such a connection. Our empirical results suggest that the Tashguzar–Boysun–Kumkurgon railway line in Uzbekistan encouraged an increase of around 2% in the regional gross domestic product growth rate in affected regions in the frame of connectivity effects. This seems to have been driven by increases in industry value added and services value added of approximately 5% and 7%, respectively. Positive and significant changes in the industrial output of the directly affected and neighboring regions mostly took place during the design and construction period in anticipation of the railway connection. The impact on agricultural output has been moderate in comparison to the abovementioned sectors, constituting around 1%, which is consistent with previous literature on the differential impact of public capital. Our results and the framework provided might help regulatory bodies to conduct comprehensive estimations of the impact of infrastructure and develop the formulation of both promotional and compensatory measures related to or induced by the effects of infrastructure provision. |
| Keywords: | Infrastructure investment; impact evaluation; Uzbekistan; railway connection |
| JEL: | H54 O11 O23 R11 |
| Date: | 2015–11–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:adbiwp:0548&r=cis |
| By: | Nina Dobrushina (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper describes the moods of Mehweb, a lect of the Dargwa branch of East Caucasian languages, Republic of Daghestan. The data for this description was collected during several field trips to the village of Mehweb (Megeb). The forms of non-indicative moods and common constructions where these forms occur are described. Mehweb has inflectional forms for the imperative, optative, irrealis and apprehensive. The hortative and jussive are expressed by means of grammatical constructions. |
| Keywords: | Nakh-Daghestanian languages, minor languages, modality, mood, imperative, hortative, jussive, optative, irrealis, conditional, apprehensive |
| JEL: | Z |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:25/lng/2015&r=cis |
| By: | Harrison, Mark (Department of Economics University of Warwick and CAGE) |
| Abstract: | This short paper reviews a new book about World War II. In most such books, what is new is not usually important, and what is important is not new. This one is an exception. How the War Was Won: Air-Sea Power and Allied Victory in World War II, by Phillips Payson O'Brien, sets out a new perspective on the war. An established view is that World War II was decided on the Eastern front, where multi-million armies struggled for supremacy on land and millions died. According to O’Brien, this neglects the fact that the preponderance of the Allied productive effort was devoted to building ships and planes for an air-sea battle that was fought to a limited extent in the East and with much higher intensity across the Western and Pacific theatres. The Allies’ air-sea power framed the outcomes of the great land campaigns by preventing Germany and Japan from fully realizing their economic potentials for war. Finding much to be said for this reinterpretation, I reconsider the true significance of the Eastern front. |
| Keywords: | attrition ; air-sea power ; strategy ; war losses ; World War II |
| JEL: | F51 N40 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:warwec:1077&r=cis |
| By: | Harrison, Mark (CAGE, University of Warwick, and the Hoover Institution, Stanford University) |
| Abstract: | This short paper reviews a new book about World War II. In most such books, what is new is not usually important, and what is important is not new. This one is an exception. How the War Was Won: Air-Sea Power and Allied Victory in World War II, by Phillips Payson O'Brien, sets out a new perspective on the war. An established view is that World War II was decided on the Eastern front, where multi-million armies struggled for supremacy on land and millions died. According to O’Brien, this neglects the fact that the preponderance of the Allied productive effort was devoted to building ships and planes for an air-sea battle that was fought to a limited extent in the East and with much higher intensity across theWestern and Pacific theatres. The Allies’ air-sea power framed the outcomes of the great land campaigns by preventing Germany and Japan from fully realizing their economic potentials for war. Finding much to be said for this reinterpretation, I reconsider the true significance of the Eastern front. |
| Keywords: | attrition, air-sea power, strategy, war losses, WorldWar II. JEL Classification: F51, N40 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:251&r=cis |