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on Confederation of Independent States |
| By: | Muravyev, Alexander (IZA) |
| Abstract: | This paper uses a quasi-experimental framework provided by recent changes in Russian corporate law to study the effect of investor protection on the value of shares. The legal change analyzed involves the empowerment of preferred (non-voting) shareholders to veto unfavorable changes in their class rights. Based on a novel hand-collected dataset of dual class stock companies in Russia and using the difference-in-difference estimator, the study finds a statistically and economically significant effect of improved protection of preferred shareholders on the value of their shares. The result is robust to several changes in the empirical specification. |
| Keywords: | investor protection, company law, dual class stock, class rights, Russia |
| JEL: | G30 G38 K22 |
| Date: | 2009–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4669&r=cis |
| By: | Victoria Dobrynskaya; Edouard Turkish |
| Abstract: | Despite impressive economic growth between 1999 and 2007, there is a fear that Russia may suffer the Dutch disease, which predicts that a country with large natural resource rents may experience a de-industrialisation and a lower long term economic growth. We study whether there are symptoms of the Dutch disease in Russia. Using Rosstat and CHELEM databases, we analyse the trends in production, wages and employment in the Russian manufacturing industries, and we study the behaviour of Russian imports and exports. We find that, while Russia exhibited some symptoms of the Dutch disease, e.g. a real appreciation of the rouble, a rise in real wages, a decrease in employment in manufacturing industries and the development of the services sector, manufacturing production nonetheless increased, contradicting the theory of the Dutch disease. These trends can be explained by the gains in productivity and the recovery after the disorganisation in the 1990s, by new market opportunities for Russian products in the European Union and in CIS countries, by a growing Chinese demand for some products and by a booming internal market. Finally, investments in many manufacturing industries were largely encouraged, whereas those in the energy sector were strongly regulated, which contributed to economic diversification. |
| Keywords: | Russia; Dutch disease; competitiveness; monetary policy |
| JEL: | E23 E58 F43 P24 |
| Date: | 2009–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cii:cepidt:2009-20&r=cis |
| By: | William Pyle; Laura Solanko |
| Abstract: | Why are some lobby groups less benign in their external effects than others? Olson (1982) proposed that those that are less encompassing in the sense that their constituents collectively represent a narrower range of sectors are more apt to seek the types of subsidies, tariffs, tax loopholes and competition-limiting regulations that impose costs on the rest of society. But his hypothesis has to our knowledge not been directly tested. Part of the reason, we suspect, relates to the absence of adequate data. By drawing on a unique pair of surveys, targeted to both business associations (lobby groups) and their constituents, we provide what we believe to be the first direct test of Olson’s hypothesis. Managers from a diverse array of Russian industrial firms and business associations were asked similar questions regarding their attitudes to policies that explicitly benefit well-defined sectoral or regional interests and, implicitly, impose external costs. The pattern of responses is striking. Managers of both the less encompassing associations and the firms that belong to such groups are much more apt to view such policies in a favorable light. More encompassing associations and the members of such organizations are relatively more skeptical of narrowly-targeted government interventions. The results, we believe, provide strong support for Olson’s hypothesis. |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mdl:mdlpap:0921&r=cis |