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on Confederation of Independent States |
| By: | Sergey Kadochnikov; Anna Fedyunina |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the relationship between export structure and economic growth in Russian regions. We hypothesize that it is not industry variety per se but the variety of related industries located relatively close to each other in the product space that significantly contributes to economic growth in Russian regions. The empirical analysis presented in the paper confirms that the density of the product space around the products for which a region had a comparative advantage determined the economic development in Russian regions in the 2003-2008 period. We conclude that the presence of a local related variety of industries in a region is one of the most important regional factors in economic development. |
| Keywords: | export, economic growth, Russian regions |
| JEL: | F14 R11 |
| Date: | 2013–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:1327&r=cis |
| By: | Sergey Shishkin (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Alexandra Burdyak (Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration); Elena Potapchik (National Research University Higher School of Economics,) |
| Abstract: | The opportunity for patient choice in the health care system in CIS countries was created by the partial destruction of the referral system and the development of paid medical services. The data of two population surveys conducted in Russia in 2009 and 2011 show that patient choice of medical facility and physician is taking place in the post-Semashko health care system, and it is not restricted to the area of paid medical services. However for the majority of population the choice of medical facility and physician is not a necessity. Part of reason for patient choice is caused by the failure of the patient referral system to ensure the necessary treatment. For some Russian citizens, the choice of health care provider is a means to obtain better quality care, and in this respect the enhancement of patient choice is leading to the improved efficiency of the emerging health care system. |
| Keywords: | health care, Semashko system, patient choice, Russia |
| JEL: | I10 I11 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:09/pa/2013&r=cis |
| By: | Petukhova, Svetlana; Strepetova, Margarita |
| Abstract: | -- |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:itse13:88534&r=cis |
| By: | Andrei Govorun (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Israel Marques (National Research University Higher School of Economics); William Pyle (Economics Department, Middlebury College) |
| Abstract: | How does political competition shape the way that firms pursue legislative change? A rich political economy literature describes various ways in which firms influence the design and enforcement of laws, rules and regulations germane to their business activities. Although helpful, this literature is disconnected from work on legislative accountability and political concentration. Making a distinction poorly developed in prior research, we contrast firms that choose to influence policy directly, through un-mediated contacts with executive and legislative branch personnel, and those that do so indirectly, through lobby groups acting as intermediaries. We propose a simple theory that relates the relative costs of lobbying and the strategies firms select to the extent of political competition and concentration. As competition increases and concentration decreases in a region, the use of indirect channels of lobbying becomes more attractive (and vice versa). We test our theory using a survey of 1013 firms across 61 Russian regions. Exploiting substantial variation in political competition and concentration across Russia’s regions, we find that firms in politically competitive environments, where there is less concentration, are more likely to use business associations to influence their institutional environment. Using a survey of 315 business associations, we show that these effects may be explained by the variation of the willingness of regional decision-making officials to support more or less encompassing policies depending on local political environment |
| Keywords: | lobbying, democratic institutions, business associations, Russia |
| JEL: | D71 D72 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:46/ec/2013&r=cis |
| By: | Tatiana Kossova (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Elena Kossova (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Maria Sheluntcova (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to reveal the relationship between rate of time preferences (RTP) and healthy lifestyles of Russians. This rate shows individual preferences for the distribution of consumption over time. We examine such healthy and unhealthy behavior as smoking, drinking alcohol, doing physical exercise and having medical check-ups. The research is based on data from a survey which was conducted by the Yuri Levada Analytical Center in 2011. Our findings suggest that the RTP along with such factors as age, gender, marital status, income, health status and employment status influence the lifestyle of Russians |
| Keywords: | rate of time preferences, individual discount rate, healthy lifestyle, smoking, drinking, physical exercises, medical check-ups, Russia |
| JEL: | D9 I1 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:45/ec/2013&r=cis |
| By: | Alexandra A. Rivlina (Higher School of Economics (Moscow, Russia)) |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to show that due to the increase in mass English-Russian bilingualism the notion of lexical variation generated by Englishization should not be restricted to the traditionally studied opposition of English loanwords vs. their host language equivalents, but should be broadened to embrace a wider range of Englishized lexical units. This will include borrowings from English, recurrent English-Russian code-switches, and a number of intermediate phenomena between them. This paper argues that there is a tendency for different Englishized lexis expressing the same denotational semantics not to be ousted in the process of assimilation, but rather to be settled in a series of variants which index different contextual information and render different socio-pragmatic connotations, especially in written discourse in various domains. Bilingual lexical variation, one of the most visible trends in modern Russian, testifies to the increase in its Englishization, facilitates the process of further Englishization, and contributes to the formation of Russian English. |
| Keywords: | language contact, borrowing, code-switching, lexical variation, bilingualism, biscriptalism / digraphia, World Englishes, Russian English |
| JEL: | Z19 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:05/lng/2013&r=cis |
| By: | Manfred Spiesberger (ZSI); Marion Mienert (DLR); Jörn Sonnenburg (DLR); Karel Haegeman (European Commission – JRC-IPTS); Oguz Ozkan (TUBITAK); Alexander Sokolov (HSE); Natalya Veselitskaya (HSE); Gorazd Weiss (ZSI); Andreas Kahle (DLR); Klaus Schuch (ZSI); Ilter Haliloglu (TUBITAK); Irina Kuklina (ICISTE); Elisabetta Marinelli (European Commission – JRC-IPTS); Maria Balashova (ICISTE) |
| Abstract: | This Working Document outlines development perspectives for cooperation in research, technology and innovation (RTI) between the EU, its Member States (MS), countries associated to the EU’s FP7 (AC), and Russia. The Working Document has been prepared in the framework of the ERA.Net RUS project and is based on a comprehensive foresight exercise implemented over the years 2010-2013 and on analysis of ongoing RTI cooperation. In-depth discussions among the ERA.Net RUS and ERA.Net RUS Plus consortiums and Funding Parties, and in the frame of expert workshops with policy makers and analysts provided essential input. Furthermore, results of other related projects (such as BILAT-RUS, BILAT-RUS Advanced, ACCESSRU, etc.) have been studied. The paper proposes a vision on enhancing the cooperation between EU MS/AC and Russia overall, as well as a specific follow-up vision for the ERA.Net RUS and ERA.Net RUS Plus projects. |
| Keywords: | European research and innovation policy, Innovation Union, ERAWATCH, European Research Area, Policy Mixes, Transnational and International Cooperation, NETWATCH, ERA Nets, Foresight, Joint programming of research, Researchers, Universities |
| Date: | 2013–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc85137&r=cis |
| By: | Freeman, Alan |
| Abstract: | This paper was presented to the May 2013 conference of the PostGLobalization Initiative (http://pglobal.org/) in response to a request from the organizers to present suggestions for the policies required to get out of the economic crisis which opened in 2007, and their implications for the Russian economy and government. Drawing on materials from the ‘Key Trends in Globalization’ website (http://ablog.typepad.com/), the paper analyzes growth in four types of country typified by the EU, the USA, India, and China. The fastest growth has been registered in China, which has followed a policy of expansionary money with strong banking controls, combined with an investment-led stimulus. Strong growth has also however been registered by countries that apply a subset of these policies, for example India, which has strong capital controls and a significant – and frequently understated – state presence in the economy. Growth is also weakest in those countries, such as the EU economies and Britain, where governments and banks specifically rule out and impede both the expansion of government spending, and state investment of any shape or form. The paper shows that it is these economic policies that produce growth, and neither some special characteristics unique to particular countries, such as their political systems or wage régimes, nor some pre-ordained new hegemonic order which decrees that the BRICS must rise because it simply happens to be their turn. Least of all can economic success be attributed to the adoption of neoliberal market policies. The specific combinations that brings the most growth invariably involve direct public involvement in investment, whose collapse is the primary and most deep-seated underlying cause of the present protracted crisis. Particularly effective – and, the paper argues, essential in the medium to long term – are policies oriented towards human development. These produce an immediate increase in consumer demand as illustrated by the effect of Brazil’s poverty-elimination policies; most decisively, however, they make possible the consolidation of the resultant surge in consumer demand, whose effect will be shortlived if unaccompanied by developmental measures, on the basis of a parallel and stable increase in investment demand and productive capacity – which requires bringing into being the type of workforce that is required to make use of leading-edge technology. On the other hand, industrial development in the modern economy depends critically on human development, precisely because of modern technology, which is ever more dependent on the specifically human contribution of skilled and creative labour. Human and industrial development, in the modern world, therefore march hand in hand. Such policies, contrary to established neoliberal dogma, require the direct involvement of the national state in both human and industrial development. Any country can develop such policies – taking into account national specificities of course – whether or not it shares China’s particularities. Policies of this type are particularly relevant to countries such as Russia and South Africa which run the risk, in an era of resource shortage accompanied by wild fluctuations of commodity prices, of subordination to a narrow, destructive and unstable development of their extractive industries, leaving them at the mercy of countries which retain command of the production of high-tech goods. Such policies will succeed all the more, to the extent that those countries who are carrying them out co-ordinate with each other on the basis of mutual justice and equality, to establish financial, material, and trading institutions that afford genuine economic independence. The decisive reason that such independent national policies are required is that the crisis, above all in the so-called ‘advanced’ economies – better now named the ‘no-longer-developing’ or NLD economies – has deep-seated origins in the long-run fall in the rate of profit, and no immediate or automatic recovery can be expected. This has led to a rise in parasitic sectors rooted in extractivist and financial capital, which have shown themselves capable of inflicting great damage on developing economies, if not prevented from so doing. The paper finishes with an evaluation of the specific policies best suited to the BRICS and more generally ‘Southern’ or emerging economies, arguing for a policy of ‘combined development’ focused on developing and applying the most advanced technologies available in the world today, combined with an industrial policy whose centre is human development – forging and nurturing a talented and creative workforce with the high levels of education and skills required to make modern technology effective - instead of passing through some mythical ‘stage of development’ requiring a focus on mineral wealth or low wages. |
| Keywords: | Crisis; Development; Growth; Inequality; State; Culture; Environment; Technology; Creativity; investment’ BRICS; Russia |
| JEL: | O10 N0 |
| Date: | 2013–04–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:52681&r=cis |
| By: | Alexander E. Chuvilin (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | One of the main aims for the argumentation theorists around the world is to define standards for the soundness of argumentation. Many authors, such as Chaim Perelman or Steven Toulmin, have emphasized the role that the field of argumentation plays in defining such standards. Judicial argumentation is strongly connected with legal procedure and substantive laws. But can we say that some rules of judicial argumentation are vested in legal rules? Can we derive standards of judicial argumentation from substantive and procedural laws? This paper answers these questions on the basis of Russian and US legislation. The present treatise is aimed at outlining the main aspects of the problem and elaborating directions for future research |
| Keywords: | Courts, Russian civil procedure, US civil procedure, legal argumentation, standards of soundness |
| JEL: | K40 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:28/law/2013&r=cis |
| By: | Konstantin Yanovskiy (Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy); Dmitry Cherny (Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration) |
| Abstract: | Can the absence of freedom of speech, a monopolized media market, and a politicized education create obstacles which will stand in the way of economic growth? The answer is an unambiguous Yes, and substantially. Partial, biased, or heteronomous mass media and an education turned into a propaganda channel not only undermine the regeneration of quality human capital, but also weaken the safeguards for the inviolability of the human individual. State, “public,” or simply state-controlled mass media are transformed. From mutually competing information sources they turn into instruments for foisting onto the viewer a system of paternalistic views (that is, views characteristic of the ideal “leftist politician”). State schools and politicized teachers’ professional unions, a normal feature of developed countries, relieve teachers of the responsibility for the quality of education. At the same time, however, teachers are required to impose upon their students certain ideological worldviews. It is quite possible that in the future this problem will become a concern for Russia, as well. Following the model provided by aggressive professional unions in large enterprises, their analogs will take shape within the system of education. The destruction of a competitive media market weakens democratic institutions and principles, something which in turn annuls political competition and the separation of powers. The elimination of political competition and of the separation of powers leads, in turn, to the weakening of safeguards for private property |
| Keywords: | Media market, Public TV, Public Education, Private Property safeguards. |
| JEL: | D72 D78 H52 P16 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gai:wpaper:0079&r=cis |
| By: | Nakhoda, Aadil |
| Abstract: | The BRIC countries (Brazil, the Russian Federation, India and China) plus Turkey contribute a significant proportion of the exports that originate from developing countries. The varieties imported from the BRIC countries plus Turkey in the textile, creative and leather industries are likely to take precedence over the imported varieties from smaller developing countries as either their production is relatively more efficient in labor-intensive industries or their resources are relatively more abundant. Therefore, the prominence of the exports of the BRIC countries plus Turkey can have implications for smaller developing countries that also specialize in the production of labor-intensive products, such as Pakistan. I study the impact of the exports of the BRIC countries plus Turkey on the exports of Pakistan to the set of importing countries based on their importance as major export destinations of Pakistan for each industry considered and the set of importing countries based on the geographical location of the importing countries as regional and non-regional destinations of the BRIC countries plus Turkey. In this paper, I aim to determine whether the exports from the BRIC countries plus Turkey either complement or substitute exports from Pakistan to the specific set of export destinations. |
| Keywords: | International trade; crowding-out of exports; complementary exports; technology upgrading; exporter and importer linkages; |
| JEL: | F1 F14 F15 F23 M21 |
| Date: | 2013–12–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:52477&r=cis |
| By: | Cvijanović, Drago; Subić, Jonel; Andrei, Jean |
| Abstract: | International Scientific Conference „SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN TERMS OF THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA STRATEGIC GOALS REALIZATION WITHIN THE DANUBE REGION -achieving regional competitiveness“, which was held in period 5-7th December 2013 in Topola, the Republic of Serbia, through number of presented papers mainly provides an overview of results of scientific research on the integrated and interdisciplinary project no. III 46006 „SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN TERMS OF THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA STRATEGIC GOALS REALIZATION WITHIN THE DANUBE REGION“. International Scientific Conference „SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN TERMS OF THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA STRATEGIC GOALS REALIZATION WITHIN THE DANUBE REGION - achieving regional competitiveness“, gathered number of scientific workers and experts from many countries. Besides the authors from Serbia in Thematic Proceedings are also presented the papers of authors from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Romania, Russia, Moldova, Slovakia, Ukraine, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan and Austria. After all 92 papers were positively reviewed by the reviewers and presented on the International Scientific Conference, they were published in the Thematic Proceedings. Proceedings publisher was Institute of Agricultural Economics Belgrade, together with 34 eminent scientific-educational institutions from Serbia and abroad. In the Plenary Section were presented 3 papers which gave significant contributions to International Scientific Conference. Rest of the papers are systematized in 3 thematic sections: IKNOWLEDGE ECONOMY AND HUMAN CAPITAL IN THE FUNCTION OF IMPROVING REGIONAL COMPETITIVENESS (45 papers); II BIOREGIONALISM AND PERMACULTURE AS A CONCEPTS OF CONSERVATION OF ECOLOGICAL SPECIFICITIES OF RURAL AREAS (27 papers); III THE CONSTRUCTION OF AGRO-REGIONAL IDENTITY THROUGH INSTITUTIONAL REFORM (17 papers). |
| Keywords: | Agriculture, sustainable agriculture, rural development, strategic goals, Danube region, regional competitiveness |
| JEL: | A3 M0 O5 Q0 Q01 |
| Date: | 2013–12–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:52472&r=cis |
| By: | Polterovich, Victor; Starkov, Oleg; Ilinskiy, Dmitry |
| Abstract: | We develop a dynamic model for analyzing the programs of contractual savings for housing (CSH). We introduce concepts of stability as well as strong and weak stability of trajectories generated by CSH programs, and obtain the necessary and sufficient conditions that guarantee fulfillment of these properties. Experimental calculations indicate that CSH programs ensure stable financing of its members under wide range of variation of parameters which are close to real data. |
| Keywords: | mortgage, programs of contractual savings for housing, Bausparkassen, contractual savings for housing bank accounts, stability |
| JEL: | D02 D14 G21 |
| Date: | 2013–11–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:52719&r=cis |
| By: | Коровкин Андрей Германович (Институт народнохозяйственного прогнозирования) |
| Date: | 2013–11–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:scn:mxreqp:20131002&r=cis |
| By: | Àlexandra Kozhukhar (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Daria Barylnikova (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This study deals with the phenomenon of multilingualism common in the areas of a high level of language density. The research was carried out in Daghestan in one of the many spots where languages from several different groups of the East Caucasian family are spoken. Through retrospective interviews (Dobrushina 2013), we investigate whether the ability to speak the language of the neighbours has changed over the last one hundred years |
| Keywords: | multilingualism, language contacts, Daghestan, East Caucasian, Caucasian languages |
| JEL: | Z19 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:04/lng/2013&r=cis |