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on Confederation of Independent States |
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Issue of 2016‒07‒16
eight papers chosen by |
| By: | Huber, Martin; Tyahlo, Svitlana |
| Abstract: | This study empirically evaluates the impact of the war in eastern Ukraine on the political attitudes and sentiments towards Ukraine and Russia among the population living close to the war zone on the territory controlled by the Ukrainian government. Exploiting unique survey data that were collected in early 2013 (13 months before the outbreak of the conflict) and early 2015 (11 months after the outbreak), we employ two strategies to infer how the war has affected two different groups defined by distance to the war zone. First, we apply a before-after analysis to examine intra-group changes in attitudes over time. Second, we use a difference-in-differences approach to investigate inter-group divergence over time. Under particular assumptions, the latter approach yields a lower absolute bound for the effect. We control for a range of observed characteristics and consider both parametric and semiparametric estimation based on inverse probability weighting. Our results suggest that one year of conflict negatively affected attitudes towards Russia, while mostly no statistically significant intra- or inter-group differences were found for sentiments towards Ukraine. |
| Keywords: | treatment effect; difference-in-differences; political attitudes; war; conflict; Ukraine; Russia |
| JEL: | P26 D74 |
| Date: | 2016–07–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fri:fribow:fribow00472&r=cis |
| By: | Iwasaki, Ichiro; Maurel, Mathilde; Meunier, Bogdan |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we aim to empirically analyze the determinants of firm entry and exit in Russia using a regional-level panel data for the years of 2008-2014, with special emphasis on institutional failures and the politico-economic impact of external crises. We found that these two elements exhibit statistically significant and economically meaningful effects both on the creation and destruction of Russian firms, controlling for potentially explanatory factors. Our empirical results also suggest that the process of firm entry and exit is manifold across Russian regions due to their heterogeneity. Nevertheless, a surprisingly robust estimate of the world oil price (irrespective of the difference in target regions) suggests a possible high exposure of each Russian region to a global crisis. This comes from the importance of oil trade with the world and, accordingly, the ongoing crisis may bring a harmful influence to regeneration of Russian businesses. |
| Keywords: | firm entry, firm exit, institutions, economic integration, crisis, Russia |
| JEL: | D22 F15 G01 P31 P33 |
| Date: | 2016–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:rrcwps:59&r=cis |
| By: | Levoshko, Tamila |
| Abstract: | Die vorliegende Studie untersucht erstmalig für die Ukraine und Polen, wie stark sich das Wirtschaftswachstum der räumlich benachbarten Regionen auf die Wachstumsrate einer Region auswirkt. Die empirische Analyse erfolgt für den Zeitraum 2004-2012 anhand des Instrumentalvariablenschätzers. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass es negative interregionale Wachstumseffekte in der Ukraine gibt, in Polen hingegen positive. Die Ergebnisse bleiben robust in Bezug auf die Spezifikation der räumlichen Gewichtungsmatrix. Zudem wird festgestellt, dass die räumlichen FDI-Spillover-Effekte einen Einfluss auf das regionale Wirtschaftswachstum in beiden untersuchten Ländern haben. |
| Keywords: | Economic Growth; Spatial Effects; FDI-Spillover-Effects; Spatial Weight Matrix; Ukraine; Poland; Transition |
| Date: | 2016–06–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:awi:wpaper:0616&r=cis |
| By: | Alkis Theonas Pitelis (University of Sussex); Christos Pitelis (Brunel University London and University of Athens) |
| Abstract: | The following paper aims at discussing the first of the three main objectives under the sixth Work Package entitled Finance, Development and Global Governance, which is the changing global financial and monetary system, including the rising influence of major emerging economies, such as those of Brazil Russia, India, and China (BRICs), as well as the role of Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWF) in these countries and the ways in which the aforementioned developments and countries can be leveraged so as to help finance investments in Europe. In this paper we focus on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), SovereignWealth Funds, Hedge Funds, Private Equity and Venture Capital. Besides noting the possibilities provided through emerging and emergent countries and sources of funds, we also provide proposals as to what can Europe do and how, so that to leverage available sources of funding in a way that fosters sustainable development. |
| Date: | 2016–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fes:wpaper:wpaper138&r=cis |
| By: | Konstantins Benkovskis (Bank of Latvia); Eduards Goluzins; Olegs Tkacevs (Bank of Latvia) |
| Abstract: | This paper describes the first CGE model for Latvia that consists of 32 industries, 55 products and seven categories of final users. To construct the model we use Latvia's National Supply and Use tables for 2011 from the WIOD database. Special attention is devoted to the fiscal block: the model consists of five government expenditure types and five revenue sources, including such four major taxes as the personal income tax (PIT), state social insurance mandatory contributions (SSIMC), value added tax (VAT) and excise tax. We also introduce an endogenous shadow economy, the size of which depends on the level of tax rates and economic activity. These features of the model allow us to obtain rich and detailed conclusions about the effect of several fiscal measures on Latvia's economy, both in aggregate and by sector. |
| Keywords: | CGE model, Latvia, fiscal policy |
| JEL: | D58 C68 H2 H6 |
| Date: | 2016–07–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ltv:wpaper:201601&r=cis |
| By: | Gang, Ira N. (Rutgers University); Gatskova, Kseniia (Institute for East and Southeast European Studies, Regensburg); Landon-Lane, John (Rutgers University); Yun, Myeong-Su (Inha University) |
| Abstract: | We examine vulnerability to poverty in Tajikistan during the global financial crisis, focusing on the roles played by international migration and remittances, using a formal, practical, and easily decomposable vulnerability measure. Our strategy is to estimate a Markov transition probability matrix with the aim of identifying the vulnerability of households to poverty. Importantly, by introducing the index of vulnerability as the weighted probability of a household falling into poverty over a given time horizon, we can use the estimated dynamics to assess the short, medium and long-run vulnerability. We find that during the "recession transition" almost all households were vulnerable to poverty while almost none were during the "recovery period". Overall, urban households, more educated households and households receiving remittances from international labor migrants were less vulnerable to poverty. While households with a current or very recent migrant did not have a significantly lower measured vulnerability to poverty, those households receiving remittances from migrants had a lower vulnerability to poverty. Our findings stress that the international labor migration from Tajikistan may not be considered as a reliable means of welfare security for the households because external economic shocks and internal political decisions may negatively affect Russian economy and lead to a reduction of remittances flow to Tajikistan. |
| Keywords: | mobility measurement, vulnerability, poverty, inequality, measurement, Tajikistan |
| JEL: | J60 D63 I32 |
| Date: | 2016–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10049&r=cis |
| By: | Asian Development Bank (ADB); Asian Development Bank (ADB) (East Asia Department, ADB); Asian Development Bank (ADB) (East Asia Department, ADB); Asian Development Bank (ADB) |
| Abstract: | The Asian Development Bank, Erdenes Mongol LLC, and the Business Council of Mongolia worked together to organize the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) Investment Forum that took place on September ??? in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. The forum was the first-ever conference to focus on the investment environments in the CAREC countries. More than ??? high-level government o?cials and business leaders from ? countries attended the event to share their insights on how to make e?ective investments within the region. They also shared their experiences and expectations on how to manage investments in Mongolia. The main topics discussed during the conference were: (i) generating a recipe for success in the CAREC region that will focus on identifying and making good investments, (ii) exploring the investment environment and policies in CAREC member countries, and (iii) investing in a regionally connected Mongolia. |
| Keywords: | adb, asian development bank, asdb, asia, pacific, poverty asia, central asia, mongolia, carec, investment forum, carec investment forum 2015, adb conference proceedings, private sector participation, private investment, investment environments, investments in mongolia, industry and trade, regional cooperation |
| Date: | 2016–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:asd:wpaper:rpt167958-2&r=cis |
| By: | Pham, Tho; Talavera, Oleksandr; Yang, Junhong |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the impacts of non-price competition on bank performance in the Ukrainian banking industry from 2009 Q1 to 2015 Q4. The competition is proxied by three measures of multimarket contacts. Our data reveal that banks with higher level of multiple market contacts are more likely to be profitable. The findings support the mutual forbearance hypothesis. When banks compete with rivals that are similar in size in multiple markets, they have incentives to cooperate instead of competing aggressively. Moreover, the effect is stronger when multimarket competitors are highly similar in size and interact in more competitive markets. Furthermore, we develop an identification strategy in which military actions are treated as an exogenous shock to banks with branches in those regions. The results suggest that after the conflict, the less affected banks do not have incentives to mutual forbear with more affected banks that experienced a sharper decline in number of branches. |
| Keywords: | Banking; Multimarket competition; Multimarket contact; Mutual forbearance hypothesis; Profitability; Identification strategy; Exogenous shock; Political conflict |
| JEL: | G21 L11 L25 L40 |
| Date: | 2016–07–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:72376&r=cis |