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on Transition Economics |
| By: | Ledyaeva, Svetlana (BOFIT) |
| Abstract: | Using a spatial autoregressive model of cross-sectional and panel data, we study the determinants and dominant strategies of FDI inflows into Russia before and after the 1998 financial crisis. The important determinants of FDI inflows into Russian regions since transition began appear to be market size, the presence of large cities and sea ports, oil and gas availability, and political and legislative risks. Since 1998, it appears the importance of big cities, the Sakhalin region, oil and gas resources and legislation risk has increased, while the importance of political risk and port availability has decreased. Our results also reveal a shift from horizontal FDI strategy to a regional trade-platform FDI strategy. While theory anticipates combined vertical and horizontal motives for regional trade-platform strategies, the lack of evidence of a vertical motive in the Russian case suggests import substitution presently plays a significant role in regional trade-platform FDI. Using a multiple spatial lags approach, we show that neighbouring regions with ports have emerged post-crisis as competitors for FDI and identify agglomeration effects in FDI between adjacent regions with and without ports during the period 1999-2002. |
| Keywords: | Foreign Direct Investment; Russian regions; FDI strategy; spatial autoregressive model |
| JEL: | C21 E22 F21 |
| Date: | 2007–07–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:bofitp:2007_015&r=tra |
| By: | Shuming Bao (University of Michigan); Örn B. Bodvarsson (St. Cloud State University and IZA); Jack W. Hou (California State University, Long Beach); Yaohui Zhao (Beijing University) |
| Abstract: | Since the 1980s, China’s government has eased restrictions on internal migration. This easing, along with rapid growth of the Chinese economy and substantial increases in foreign and domestic investments, has greatly stimulated internal migration. Earlier studies have established that migration patterns were responsive to spatial differences in labor markets in China, especially during the 1990s. However, other important economic and socio-political determinants of interprovincial migration flows have not been considered. These include the size of the migrant community in the destination, foreign direct and domestic fixed asset investments, industry and ethnic mixes and geographic biases in migration patterns. We estimate a modified gravity model of interprovincial migration in China that includes as explanatory variables: migrant networks in the destination province, provincial economic conditions, provincial human capital endowments, domestic and foreign investments made in the province, industry and ethnic mixes in the province, provincial amenities and regional controls, using province-level data obtained from the National Census and China Statistical Press for the 1980s and 1990s. We find strong evidence that migration rates rise with the size of the destination province’s migrant community. Foreign and domestic investments influence migration patterns, but sometimes in unexpected ways. We find that as economic reforms in China deepened in the 1990s, the structure of internal migration did not change as much as earlier studies have suggested. Consequently, our results raise new questions about the World’s largest-scale test case of internal migration and strongly suggest a need for further research. |
| Keywords: | internal migration, investment, migrant networks |
| JEL: | J61 |
| Date: | 2007–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2924&r=tra |
| By: | Ian Babetskii (Czech National Bank; CERGE-EI); Fabrizio Coricelli (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development; CEPR); Roman Horváth (Institute of Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic; Czech National Bank) |
| Keywords: | inflation dynamics, persistence, inflation targeting |
| JEL: | D40 E31 |
| Date: | 2007–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fau:wpaper:wp2007_22&r=tra |
| By: | Robert Shelburne (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe); Oksana Pidufala (Brookings Institution) |
| Abstract: | The paper analyzes the trade flows of the CIS countries with an emphasis on manufactured goods. An abstract in Russian is also provided. Manufactured exports were particularly hard hit by the breakup of the Soviet Union and the CMEA. The study examines trends in the volume of this trade and its geographical and commodity distribution. The CIS countries currently under-rely on the other CIS for their imports of manufactures but over-rely on them as a destination for their exports. CIS exports of manufactures are concentrated primarily of products in SITC 6 produced with medium or low-skilled labor and technology. Nevertheless they export manufacures that are typically exported by countries much richer than themselves although the prices they recieve are much lower. The level of intra-industry trade, as well as marginal intra-industry, of these countries is remarkably low. Generally each of the CIS exports a different set of goods so there is limited competition between them. The study also describes the current trade policy issues facing the region concerning their preferential trading arrangements and WTO accession. The longer-run prospects for manufacturing and policy options for promoting this sector are explored. |
| Keywords: | CIS, manufactures, trade, Russia, transition economies, intra-industry, comparative advantage, trade policy |
| JEL: | F14 O14 P27 P33 |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ece:dispap:10&r=tra |
| By: | Fenglian Du; Jian-chun Yang; Xiao-yuan Dong |
| Abstract: | This paper provides the first systematic analysis of the reasons why women endure longer unemployment durations than men in post-restructuring urban China using data obtained from a national representative household survey. Rejecting the view that women are less earnest than men in their desire for employment, the analysis shows that women's job search efforts are handicapped by lack of access to social networks, social stereotyping (that married women are unreliable employees), unequal access to social reemployment services stemming from sex segregation prior to the displacement, and wage discrimination in the post-restructuring labor market. |
| Keywords: | Gender inequality, unemployment duration, Oaxaca-decomposition |
| JEL: | J16 J21 J64 J71 R20 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:pmmacr:2007-23&r=tra |
| By: | Mayes, David G (BOFIT); Korhonen, Vesa (BOFIT) |
| Abstract: | We consider the likely economic impact and prospects for monetary integration among Belarus, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation and Ukraine as part of the Single Economic Space they have agreed to set up. A monetary union among these countries poses three interesting issues for the structure and process of integration: they have already been members of a wider currency union that collapsed, so it is necessary to handle the problems of history; secondly the union would be of very unequal size with the Russian Federation outweighing the others taken together, so we must consider how the national interests would be balanced; lastly natural resources, particularly oil and gas pose problems for dependence and for the determination of the external exchange rate. |
| Keywords: | monetary union; CIS; economic integration |
| JEL: | E42 E63 F16 |
| Date: | 2007–07–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:bofitp:2007_016&r=tra |
| By: | Alexander Muravyev; Dorothea Schäfer; Oleksandr Talavera |
| Abstract: | This paper studies gender discrimination against entrepreneurs by financial institutions. Based on the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS) that covers firms in several countries of Western Europe as well as in the transition countries of Eastern Europe, our analysis suggests that female-managed firms are less likely to obtain a bank loan compared with male-managed counterparts. In addition, there is some evidence that female entrepreneurs are charged higher interest rates when loan applications are approved. Disaggregation of the sample by country groups suggests that these results are driven by firms in the least financially developed countries of the region. |
| Keywords: | entrepreneurship, gender, financial constraints |
| JEL: | G21 J16 L26 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp706&r=tra |
| By: | Balázs Égert (Oesterreichische Nationalbank, Foreign Research Division) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a comprehensive review of the factors that can cause price levels to diverge and which are at the root of different inflation rates in Europe including the EU-27. Among others, we study the structural and cyclical factors influencing market and non-market-based service, house and goods prices, and we summarise some stylised facts emerging from descriptive statistics. Subsequently, we set out the possible mismatches between price level convergence and inflation rates. Having described in detail the underlying economic factors, we proceed to demonstrate the relative importance of these factors on observed inflation rates first in an accounting framework and then by relying on panel estimations. Our estimation results provide the obituary notice for the Balassa-Samuelson effect. Nevertheless, we show that other factors related to economic convergence may push up inflation rates in transition economies. Cyclical effects and regulated prices are found to be important drivers of inflation rates in an enlarged Europe. House prices matter to some extent in the euro area, whereas the exchange rate plays a prominent (but declining) role in transition economies. |
| Keywords: | price level, inflation, Balassa-Samuelson, tradables, house prices, regulated prices, Europe, transition |
| JEL: | E43 E50 E52 C22 G21 O52 |
| Date: | 2007–05–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:onb:oenbwp:138&r=tra |
| By: | Ha-Joon Chang |
| Abstract: | This United Nations Policy Note on State-Owned Enterprise Reform provides practical guidance on alternative policies to reform SOEs and manage natural resource rents. This Policy Note has been developed in cooperation with UN agencies, and has been officially reviewed by distinguished academics/ development specialists such as Jose Antonio Ocampo, Jomo K.S. and Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz. |
| Keywords: | state-owned enterprises, management natural resource rents, development planning |
| JEL: | O1 O2 L5 |
| Date: | 2007–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:une:pnotes:4&r=tra |
| By: | Kartseva Marina; Sinavskaya Oksana; Zakharov Sergey |
| Abstract: | Poor in Russia are mainly families with children mostly because of the unemployment or inactivity of a parent. This project is aimed at revealing typical models of demographic and labor market behavior and understanding how decisions regarding family formation and labor force participation are synchronized at the household level. |
| Date: | 2007–07–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eer:wpalle:04-916&r=tra |
| By: | Pasquale Tridico |
| Abstract: | Abstract. Over the past decade, most emerging and transition economies are experiencing fast growth, which is above the world average, and a consistent institutional change. The aim of this paper is twofold. First of all, a cross-country analysis of a group of emerging and transition economies in the period 1999-2005 will be carried out in order to understand what determines such growth among these countries. Secondly, a comparative analysis will be carried out. The countries will be classified according to their socio-economic models and institutional variables. Countries will be classified by taking their financial structures and ownership control over firms into consideration (Levine and Kunt, 1999; La Porta et. al., 1999), and we will investigate whether institutions and the type of socio-economic model may have an impact on growth. The central hypothesis of the paper is that explaining economic growth is a complex issue which needs positive interaction of several socio-economic and institutional factors. My analysis suggests that countries can grow with their own “style of capitalism” and economic model, and the determinants of economic growth seem to be the ability of each country to associate appropriate governance and institutions with education level, export activity and non-income dimensions of human development (life expectancy growth and infant mortality reduction). In fact, countries which experienced an increase in non-income dimensions of human development during 1970-2000,as a consequence of appropriate institutions, have sustained economic growth. |
| Keywords: | economic growth, institutions, human development |
| JEL: | F43 O43 G32 I31 |
| Date: | 2007–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rtr:wpaper:0075&r=tra |
| By: | Alessandro Goglio |
| Abstract: | Hungary's counties and municipalities face difficult challenges. Participation in cost-cutting structural reforms initiated by the central government means cutbacks to administrative overheads and tough decisions in public services. At the same time, there are also challenges in modernising local infrastructures and in making full use of the EU funds for development projects. This paper first looks at how meeting these challenges can be helped by better budgeting, in particular regarding the transparency and oversight of accounts. Financing arrangements are also examined and this reveals a general problem of complexity. Assessment of spending responsibilities suggests room for improving the roles of counties and regions and a need for cutbacks in central-government influence on service provision and public-sector wages at the local level. <P>Promouvoir l'efficience des administrations infranationales en Hongrie <BR>Les départements et les communes de la Hongrie se trouvent confrontés à une série de problèmes. Leur participation aux réformes structurelles lancées par l’administration centrale les oblige à trancher dans les dépenses administratives et à prendre des décisions délicates en ce qui concerne les services publics. Dans le même temps, il faut mener une action permanente de modernisation des infrastructures locales et tirer pleinement parti des financements de l’UE pour les projets de développement. On verra tout d’abord comment une meilleure budgétisation, surtout pour ce qui est de la transparence et du contrôle des comptes, faciliterait cette action. On examinera également les modalités de financement, qui posent un problème général, celui d’une trop grande complexité. Une évaluation des compétences en matière de dépenses montre qu’il serait possible de mieux définir les missions des comtés et des régions et que l’administration centrale devrait exercer moins d’influence sur la prestation des services et sur les rémunérations dans le secteur public. |
| Keywords: | Hungary, Hongrie, public procurement, marchés publics, sub-national government, public services, autorités infranationales, budgétisation, services publics, contrôle des comptes, économies d'échelle, partage des impôts, fiscalité locale |
| JEL: | H7 |
| Date: | 2007–07–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:565-en&r=tra |
| By: | Betliy Oleksandra; Kuziakiv Oksana; Onishchenko Katerina |
| Abstract: | Sound panel data analysis both on the macro and micro levels intends to define key macro and micro determinants of health of the population and quality of health services. The research will contribute to development of quality-enhancing policies in health sector on regional level and on the level of medical establishments. |
| Date: | 2007–07–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eer:wpalle:04-909&r=tra |