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on Confederation of Independent States |
| By: | Konstanin Yanovsky (Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy); Sergey Zhavoronkov (Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy); Daniel Shestakov (Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy) |
| Abstract: | Adam Smith pointed out public respect, prestige as significant component of compensation "for some employment" ("honorableness... of employment"). We assumed, the public moral sanction on success (Weber), public demand for "self-made man" should correlate positively with number of businessmen elected (US Senators, Russian governors and State Duma Deputies). Expressive voting of this sort could support positive pro-market patterns (create positive externalities) - contrary to the "expressive policy (behavior) trap" (Hillman, 2010). During the USA "classical" period ("First 150 years" M. Friedman recommended to take as a model for underdeveloped countries), successful entrepreneurs enjoyed obvious advantages in elections. The same was true for outstanding military-men, for civilian experienced in combat and decorated with awards it also greatly improved their chances to be elected. To hold military heroes in public respect was equivalent of public demand for more quality pure public good "defense" provision. Arising of leftist parties and coalitions, standing for mixed public goods priority provision, accompanied by sensible changes in public respect distribution. Lawyers, businessmen and army officers (military heroes) are crowded out by public servants, "social activists", public school teachers since "Universal Suffrage" institution introduction. In Russia, entrepreneurial status, especially a successful entrepreneurs status, is accompanied by no tangible public recognition. However, the self-esteem of individuals employed in business remains relatively high. The officers "ahead start" was almost unobservable in Russia after very first elections. With our data we also found that economic freedom indicators associated with greater prestige of entrepreneurs within society are positively correlated with voting for pro-market parties and negatively correlated with voting for left. |
| Keywords: | employment prestige, business prestige, public respect, roving anti-business bandit, stationary anti-business bandit, and leftists' electoral support measured negative perception of business |
| JEL: | D72 K22 P16 Z13 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gai:ppaper:142&r=cis |
| By: | Nikoloski, Zlatko; Ajwad, Mohamed Ihsan |
| Abstract: | Using longitudinal data on more than 2,000 Russian families spanning the period between 2007 and 2010, this paper estimates the impact of the 2009 global financial crisis on food expenditures, health care expenditures, and doctor visits in Russia. The primary estimation strategy adopted is the semi-parametric difference-in-difference with propensity score matching technique. The analysis finds that household health and nutritional behavior indicators do not vary statistically between households that were crisis-affected and households that were not affected by the crisis. However, the analysis finds that crisis-affected poor families curtailed their out-of-pocket health expenditures during and after the crisis more than poor families that were not affected by the crisis did. In addition, crisis-affected vulnerable groups changed their health behavior. In particular, households with low educational attainment of household heads and households with more elderly people changed their health and nutrition behavior response when affected by the crisis. The results are invariant to the propensity score matching techniques and parametric fixed effects estimation models. |
| Keywords: | Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Health Systems Development&Reform,Regional Economic Development,Population Policies,Rural Poverty Reduction |
| Date: | 2013–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6538&r=cis |
| By: | Konstanin Yanovsky (Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy); Sergey Zhavoronkov (Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy); Vladimir Mau (Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy) |
| Abstract: | In this chapter we are addressing the numerous cases of government failures in countries with transit economies and weak democratic traditions when the state is called upon to provide “pure public goods” (defense, security, and justice). In other words, the subject matter of this chapter involves those institutions which create the very possibility of the existence of real, rather than merely nominal, private property. The modern understanding of genuine private property includes the assumption of the inviolability of the person of the property owner. Without this, the difference between private property and medieval “conditional tenure” becomes negligible. The inviolability of the person of the property owner is assured by the state’s supplying three classic “pure public goods”: defense (protection of the property owner from aggression from abroad); security, and justice (protection of the property owner against arbitrary action and coercion within the country). The creation and maintenance of a combat ready military, uncorrupted law enforcement government agencies, and an independent court system subject only to the law, are duties of primary importance when reforms are under way. These “pure public goods” are extremely important for long term economic growth. An independent court presumes the independence of judges, their irremovability, and high costs of their dismissal. Court independence is provided and ensured by laws and traditions, and finds its expression in the fact that the state, as represented by high ranking officials and agencies of the government, can lose in court to a private individual in the course of a litigation of some significance to society as a whole. The availability or absence of independent courts is treated as a logical variable. In Russia, the quality of the court system and the law enforcing agencies of the government continues to remain low, despite an entire series of attempts at reform and disparate achievements here and there. In the early 1990s, reformers’ attention was principally focused on economic transformations: their objective was achieving financial stability and privatization. The absence of financial stability posed the imminent threat of social explosion and economic collapse. Privatization was already outfitted with ready-to-use options for implementation, which had been tested by other post-socialist countries. An understanding of the importance of reforming the court system and law enforcing and judicial government agencies came in the late 1990s. Significant and lasting achievements in the area of creating an atmosphere favorable to the growth of business and the economy turned out to be impossible without such reforms.. |
| Keywords: | Rule of Law, Rule of Force, Personal Rights, Private Property Protection; Pure public goods |
| JEL: | D73 D78 K40 N44 O43 P26 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gai:ppaper:139&r=cis |
| By: | Tausch, Arno |
| Abstract: | Our analysis, based on a variety of standard econometric techniques, aims to be a fairly comprehensive test of the hypotheses about long cycles, associated with the name of Kondratiev/Kondratieff. Our work tries to link the issue of long cycles with the issue of economic convergence and divergence in the world system, because there are very strong cyclical ups and downs of relative convergence in the world system, observable not just in the “national” growth rates and “national” economic cycles. Already the Japanese economist Kaname Akamatsu, who lived from August 7, 1896 to December 20, 1974, and who was a great admirer of Kondratiev/Kondratieff, hinted at this connection. His most well-known tribute to Kondratiev/Kondratieff (Akamatsu, 1961) specifically links the rise and decline of the global peripheries to the larger Kondratiev/Kondratieff cycle. His contribution, which is hardly ever mentioned nowadays in the framework of K-cycle research, is the starting point of our analysis. In fact, these “Akamatsu cycles”, analyzed in this work, are even stronger and seem to be more devastating than the “national Kondratiev/Kondratieff waves” and world systemic waves themselves, leading to the discovery of what might be even termed a “double-Tsunami wave structure”. Both our re-analysis of world industrial production growth data since 1741 as well as the global conflict data since 1495, presented in this article, cautiously support the earlier contentions of world system research with evidence, tested by spectral analysis and auto-correlation analysis. Using the well-known and now updated Maddison data base at http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/maddison-project/data.htm, Kondratiev/Kondratieff cycles of around 60 years duration at a nation state level are most clearly visible in Argentina, Canada, and Russia, with evidence on the existence of longer cycles of more than 35 years also in Belgium; Chile; Greece; Netherlands; India; New Zealand; Spain; and USA; while for the other countries of the Maddison data set, earlier negative spectral density analysis results reported in the ample literature surveyed in this article could not be falsified. By contrast, the evidence about strong long term cycles of convergence seems to be very convincing. Future research is recommended to realize that convergence processes in most nations of the world are discontinuous and of a cyclical nature, thus supporting the pessimism inherent in the writings by the world systems scholar Giovanni Arrighi on the subject. |
| Keywords: | Kondratieff; Long waves: Business cycles |
| JEL: | C65 E32 E37 |
| Date: | 2013–07–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:48356&r=cis |
| By: | Shumska, Svitlana; Stepanenko-Lypovyk, Bohdana |
| Abstract: | Specific feature of the present stage of financial markets development is strengthening of internationalization processes, manifested in erasing national borders between states, formation of international financial market, establishment of transnational financial corporations as well as growing inflows of foreign capital in the financial sector of emerging markets. Due to the financial crisis of 2008 strengthening of internationalization of financial markets led to increased risks associated with the presence of foreign capital in the financial system. Expansion of the crisis in Ukraine's financial sector was supported by the presence in the banking system of a significant share of the capital of foreign banks, parent institutions of which were affected by the global financial crisis and became one of the channels of its expansion. The article’s object is to summarize features and trends of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) processes on both the global financial market and Ukrainian banking sector. Also, the likely reasons of reducing of the number and value of M&A deals in Europe and Ukraine in 2006-2011 were denoted. The change of qualitative characteristics of mergers and acquisitions in the Ukrainian banking sector was shown on the basis of the value evaluation of banks that were sold to foreign investors. The countries of origin of capital directed on M&A transactions with Ukrainian banking institutions were determined, which made possible to detect changes in the geographical structure of the inflow of foreign capital in the domestic banking sector. The impact of financial crisis of 2008 on the financial stability of banks with both Ukrainian and foreign capital was shown. On the base of the conducted research the threats that are distinctive for the current stage of development of the financial market of Ukraine were substantiated. |
| Keywords: | Mergers and acquisitions, foreign capital, financial market, banking sector, capital outflows. |
| JEL: | G10 G34 |
| Date: | 2012–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:48426&r=cis |