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on Confederation of Independent States |
| By: | Koen DECANCQ |
| Abstract: | Well-being consists of many dimensions such as income, health and education. A society exhibits greater dependence between its dimensions of well-being when the positions of the individuals in the different dimensions are more aligned or correlated. Differences in dependence may lead to very different societies, even when the dimension-wise distributions are identical. I propose to use a copula-based framework to order societies with respect to their dependence. A class of measures of dependence is derived to which the multidimensional rank correlation coefficient belongs. I illustrate the usefulness of the approach by showing that Russian dependence between three dimensions of well-being has increased significantly between 1995 and 2003. Unfortunately, the aspect of dependence is missed by all composite well-being measures based on dimension-specific summary statistics such as the popular Human Development Index (HDI). |
| Keywords: | copula, complex inequality, concordance, HDI, multidimensional inequality, Russia, well-being. |
| JEL: | D31 D63 I31 O50 |
| Date: | 2009–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ete:ceswps:ces09.24&r=cis |
| By: | Sergey Ivliev |
| Abstract: | The model is aimed to discriminate the 'good' and the 'bad' companies in Russian corporate sector based on their financial statements data (Russian Accounting Standards). The data sample consists of 126 Russian public companies- issuers of Ruble bonds which represent about 36% of total number of corporate bonds issuers. 25 companies have defaulted on their debt in 2008-2009 which represent around 30% of default cases. 29% companies in the sample have credit ratings assigned compared to 34% in the parent population. No SPV companies were included in the sample. The model shows in-sample Gini AR about 73% and gives a reasonable mapping to external ratings. The model can be used to calculate implied credit rating for Russian companies which many of them don't have one. |
| Date: | 2010–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1004.0685&r=cis |
| By: | Bogetic, Zeljko; Smits, Karlis; Budina, Nina; van Wijnbergen, Sweder |
| Abstract: | Russia entered the global crisis with strong fiscal position, low public debt, and large fiscal and monetary reserves, which helped it cushion the crisis shocks. But the rise in the non-oil fiscal deficit in 2007-08 and, more importantly, the massive impact of the global crisis in late 2008 and 2009 have dramatically altered Russia's medium-term and long-term economic and fiscal outlook. While Russia is emerging from this crisis on a much stronger footing than during the 1998-09 crisis thanks to its strong-pre crisis fundamentals, large fiscal reserves and solid management of the crisis, it will nevertheless need to implement sustained fiscal adjustment in the coming years. Both revenue and expenditure measures will be needed. This will require 2-3 percentage points of GDP in fiscal adjustment for about five years in addition to keeping total expenditure levels at a relatively low 31.5 percent of GDP, consistent with long-term social expenditure needs and requirements of long-term fiscal sustainability. Following a period of adjustment, if Russia would restrain its long-term non-oil deficits to the permanent income (PI) equivalent of its oil revenues as proposed in this paper, its fiscal policy will return to long-term sustainable path. The long-term, sustainable level of non-oil fiscal deficit is estimated at about 4.3 percent of GDP. With the 2009 actual non-oil fiscal deficit of about 14 percent of GDP, this implies significant and sustained fiscal adjustment over the medium term. The expenditure needs of the social security system as well as a reduction in key non-oil taxes represent a major fiscal risk to all scenarios. |
| Keywords: | Debt Markets,Public Sector Expenditure Policy,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Stabilization,Currencies and Exchange Rates |
| Date: | 2010–03–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5240&r=cis |
| By: | John S. Earle (W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research and Central European University); Scott Gehlbach (University of Wisconsin, Madison) |
| Abstract: | We reexamine the well-publicized claim that "rapid mass privatisation [of state-owned enterprises] . . . was a crucial determinant of differences in adult mortality trends in postcommunist countries" (Stuckler, King and McKee, 2009). Our analysis shows that the estimated correlation of privatization and mortality in country-level data is not robust to recomputing the mass-privatization measure, to assuming a short lag for economic policies to affect mortality, and to controlling for country-specific mortality trends. Further, in an analysis of the determinants of mortality in Russian regions, we find no evidence that privatization increased mortality during the early 1990s. Finally, we reanalyze the relationship between privatization and unemployment in postcommunist countries, showing that there is little support for the proposed mechanism by which privatization might have increased mortality. |
| Keywords: | privatization, mortality, health, shock therapy, unemployment, Eastern Europe, Former Soviet Union, Lancet |
| JEL: | I18 L33 P2 P31 O57 |
| Date: | 2010–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upj:weupjo:10-162&r=cis |
| By: | Libman, Alexander |
| Abstract: | An important but often neglected factor influencing the changes in power relations in Eurasia is the development of center-periphery relations in individual countries. Domestic and international politics are never clearly separated, especially in the emerging post-Soviet states, which still maintain strong economic, cultural and political links among each other. The aim of the paper is to understand how international integration and domestic policy (re)centralization influenced each other in the post-Soviet countries. It looks at four possible combinations of the development of regionalism and decentralization observed in the CIS region over the last two decades and develops a simple framework explaining the differences between these case studies. |
| Keywords: | regional integration; decentralization; post-Soviet countries; multi-level governance |
| JEL: | H77 F15 P26 |
| Date: | 2010–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:21882&r=cis |