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on Transition Economics |
| By: | Alexander Muravyev |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to explain the large premium paid on common (voting) shares relative to preferred (non-voting) shares in the Russian stock market. Empirical analysis focuses on two main explanations relating the premium either to the voting right attached to common shares or to differences in liquidity between the two classes of stock. Two avenues through which the right to vote may give rise to the premium are distinguished. First, the presence of private benefits of control and the possibility of control contests may make the votes held by small investors pivotal, and therefore valuable. Second, non-voting shareholders may be expropriated as a class by voting shareholders. Regression analysis of RTS stock exchange data from 1997- 2005 provides support for the control contest model of the premium as well as for the liquidity argument. The study finds no evidence that the premium is related to expropriation of preferred shareholders as a class. |
| JEL: | G32 G34 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp680&r=tra |
| By: | Irina Denisova (CEFIR) |
| Abstract: | Long-term sustainability requires social stability and hence could be undermined by high poverty levels. Still more than twenty five million Russians have incomes that are lower than subsistence level. Effective policies to fight poverty are to be based on clear understanding of its determinants and are to distinguish between measures to prevent from slipping into poverty, and measures to get out of poverty for those who are poor. The study is the first attempt to investigate how entry to poverty and exit from poverty in Russia are shaped, and what are the determinants of the processes. We study entry and exit to poverty using survival analysis and utilizing the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) panel for 1994-2004. The study allows obtaining some important insights. In particular, it shows that the two processes have both symmetries and important asymmetries, with an example of one of the most interesting results being the asymmetry in the influence of economic periods. It turns out that economic growth lowers chances to slip into poverty but also reduces hazards from poverty. This implies that households in poverty in the era of economic upturn are those with serious problems and are to be paid special attention to. |
| Keywords: | Poverty, Duration Analysis, Entry to Poverty, Exit from Poverty, Transition,RLMS |
| JEL: | I32 I38 C41 P36 |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cfr:cefirw:w0098&r=tra |
| By: | Nauro F. Campos (Brunel University, CEPR, WDI and IZA); Dean Jolliffe (Economic Research Service, USDA, NPC, WDI and IZA) |
| Abstract: | How does the relationship between earnings and schooling change with the introduction of comprehensive economic reform? This paper sheds light on this question using a unique data set and procedure to reduce sample selection bias. Our evidence is from consistently coded, non-retrospective data for about 4 million Hungarian wage earners. We find that returns to skill increased by 75 percent from 1986 to 2004 (that is, during the period stretching from communism to full membership in the European Union). Moreover, our results identify winners and losers from reform. Winners were the college and university educated and those employed in the services sector (which excludes those in public services). Our results show that reform losers were those in construction and agriculture, those who attained only primary or vocational education (who actually experience a decrease in the returns to their education) as well as those younger workers which acquired most of their education after the collapse of communism (that is, after the main reforms were in place). |
| Keywords: | human capital, transition economies, economic reform |
| JEL: | I20 J20 J24 J31 O15 O52 P20 |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2678&r=tra |
| By: | Floro Ernesto Caroleo (University of Naples Parthenope); Francesco Pastore (Seconda Università di Napoli and IZA) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a critical overview and a detailed research agenda for scholars interested in regional studies with a special focus on old and new European Union member states. The focus is on the microeconomic foundations of structural change and its spatially asymmetric impact on labour markets. Structural change has been long neglected, but the availability of new data and the specific nature of economic transition in new member states has brought again this issue to the fore, suggesting that it might provide an explanation also of several typical features of regional imbalances in old member states. The literature provides theoretical reasoning and empirical evidence to confirm this. |
| Keywords: | regional unemployment, structural change, labour turnover, optimal speed of transition, EU enlargement |
| JEL: | J6 P2 R1 R23 |
| Date: | 2007–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2620&r=tra |
| By: | Lars Osberg; Kuan Xu (Department of Economics, Dalhousie University) |
| Keywords: | development; poverty, measurement, China, growth |
| Date: | 2007–02–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dal:wparch:rderevision9&r=tra |
| By: | Rylko, Dmitri; Jolly, Robert W. |
| Abstract: | Data from case studies, interviews, and surveys are used to explore the emergence, growth, and likely consequences of new agricultural operators (NAOs) in Russia. NAOs or agroholdings are very large farming operations averaging more than 50,000 ha, which are externally owned and managed. Entry motives and patterns vary widely, but most NAOs are responding to real profit opportunities. They bring with them the means to overcome market and institutional imperfections, as well as limitations in human and physical capital. However, there is a real risk they may lead to the creation of Russian latifundia to the possible detriment of the rural population. |
| Keywords: | Russian agriculture, transition economies, agroholdings, farm structure, latifundia, farm consolidation, vertical integration, diversification |
| Date: | 2006–05–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genres:12635&r=tra |
| By: | Andrew Newell (University of Sussex and IZA); Mieczyslaw W. Socha (University of Warsaw) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents and analyses the sharp increase in hourly wage inequality after 1998 in Poland. The increase was similar in magnitude to the much-studied increase in British wage inequality during the 1980s. Using data from the Polish Labour Force Survey, we find this increase to be associated with rising wage differentials and within-group variances at both the upper and lower ends of the wage distribution. These increases are associated with differences in wage-setting patterns between the public and private sector as well in the rapid increase in the demand for educated labour. One important difference between the sectors is the lack of an impact of local labour market conditions, or wage curve, clearly evident in private sector wages, on public sector wages. |
| Keywords: | Poland, wage inequality |
| JEL: | J31 P23 |
| Date: | 2007–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2644&r=tra |