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on Confederation of Independent States |
| By: | Andrei Shleifer |
| Abstract: | The 20th anniversary of the beginning of economic reforms in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union provides a good opportunity to comment on the lessons of transition says Andrei Shleifer, a Professor of Economics at Harvard University. He made a top seven list, which might be useful to future reformers. Some of the issues are relevant not only for communist countries; the problems of heavily statist economies are similar. |
| Keywords: | Post-communist transition and development issues, Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia, economic reforms |
| Date: | 2012–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sec:ebrief:1203&r=cis |
| By: | Babeckii, Ian (BOFIT); Komárek, Luboš (BOFIT); Komárková, Zlatuše (BOFIT) |
| Abstract: | Interest in examining the financial linkages of economies has increased in the wake of the 2008/2009 global financial crisis. Applying the concepts of beta- and sigma-convergence of stock market returns, we assess changes over time in the degree of stock market integration between Russia and China as well as between them and the United States, the euro area and Japan. Our analysis is based on national and sectoral data spanning the period September 1995 to October 2010. Overall, we find evidence for gradually increasing stock market integration after the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the 1998 Russian financial crisis. Following a major disruption caused by the 2008/2009 global financial crisis, the process of stock market integration resumes between Russia and China, and with world markets. Notably, the episode of sigma-divergence from the 2008/2009 crisis is stronger for China than Russia. We also find that the process of stock market integration and the impact of the recent crisis have not been uniform at the sectoral level, suggesting potential for diversification of risk across sectors. |
| Keywords: | stock market integration; beta-convergence; sigma-convergence; China; Russia; sectoral and national analysis |
| JEL: | C23 G12 G15 |
| Date: | 2012–02–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:bofitp:2012_004&r=cis |
| By: | Fungácová, Zuzana (BOFIT); Jakubík, Petr (BOFIT) |
| Abstract: | The recent financial crisis emphasised the need for effective financial stability analyses and tools for detecting systemic risk. This paper looks at assessment of banking sector resilience through stress testing. We argue such analyses are valuable even in emerging economies that suffer from limited data availability, short time series and structural breaks. We propose a top-down stress test methodology that employs relatively limited information to overcome this data problem. Moreover, as credit growth in emerging economies tends to be rather volatile, we rely on dynamic approach projecting key balance sheet items. Application of our proposed stress test framework to the Russian banking sector reveals a high sensitivity of the capital adequacy ratio to the economic cycle that shows up in both of the two-year macroeconomic scenarios considered: a baseline and an adverse one. Both scenarios indicate the need for capital increase in the Russian banking sector. Furthermore, given that Russia’s banking sector is small and fragmented relative to advanced economies, the loss of external financing can cause profound economic stress, especially for medium-sized and small enterprises. The Russian state has a low public debt-to-GDP ratio and plays decisive role in the banking sector. These factors allow sufficient fiscal space for recapitalisation of problematic banks under both of our proposed baseline and adverse scenarios. |
| Keywords: | stress testing; bank; Russia |
| JEL: | G21 G28 P34 |
| Date: | 2012–02–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:bofitp:2012_003&r=cis |
| By: | Latika Chaudhary; Aldo Musacchio; Steven Nafziger; Se Yan |
| Abstract: | Our paper provides a comparative perspective on the development of public primary education in four of the largest developing economies circa 1910: Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC). These four countries encompassed more than 50 percent of the world’s population in 1910, but remarkably few of their citizens attended any school by the early 20th century. We present new, comparable data on school inputs and outputs for BRIC drawn from contemporary surveys and government documents. Recent studies emphasize the importance of political decentralization, and relatively broad political voice for the early spread of public primary education in developed economies. We identify the former and the lack of the latter to be important in the context of BRIC, but we also outline how other factors such as factor endowments, colonialism, serfdom, and, especially, the characteristics of the political and economic elite help explain the low achievement levels of these four countries and the incredible amount of heterogeneity within each of them. |
| JEL: | I22 I28 N30 O15 |
| Date: | 2012–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17852&r=cis |
| By: | Irina Tochitskaya |
| Abstract: | On December 16th, 2011, an 18 year long negotiation process regarding Russia’s WTO membership was finally brought to an end. Undoubtedly, Russia’s WTO accession is an important event both for the global trade system and for the country. With Russia now in the club, the WTO will control over 97 per cent of global trade. |
| Keywords: | Russia, WTO, trade |
| Date: | 2012–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sec:ebrief:1201&r=cis |