nep-cis New Economics Papers
on Confederation of Independent States
Issue of 2016‒11‒27
seven papers chosen by
Alexander Harin
Modern University for the Humanities

  1. Растениеводство в Волго-Вятском регионе и в Придунавье Сербии: сравнительный анализ и возможности сотрудничества By Bukvić, Rajko; Pajović, Ivan; Petrović, Dragan
  2. Friendly fire - the trade impact of the Russia sanctions and counter-sanctions By Crozet, Matthieu; Hinz, Julian
  3. «A Monologue About Foreign Ships» by Sugita Genpaku By Olga V. Klimova
  4. The Role of Lawyers in Social Changes in Developing Countries: Evidence from Russia By Andrei Yakovlev; Anton Kazun; Daniil Sitkevich
  5. Land rights, rental markets and the post-socialist cityscape By Castañeda Dower, Paul; Pyle, William
  6. The Belarus Economy: The Challenges of Stalled Reforms By Amat Adarov; Kateryna Bornukova; Rumen Dobrinsky; Peter Havlik; Gabor Hunya; Dzmitry Kruk; Olga Pindyuk
  7. Total Factor Productivity and Social Cooperation: Theoretical Framework and Tentative Empirical Analysis By Ilya Lokshin; Anastasia Samorodova; Evgenia Skoptsova

  1. By: Bukvić, Rajko; Pajović, Ivan; Petrović, Dragan
    Abstract: Russian Abstract. В статье анализируются предположения и результаты в растениеводстве в Волго-Вятском районе и в Дунайском регионе. Волго-Вятский район расположен к северу от черноземной зоны высокого качества в России, лучшей земли для сельского хозяйства, но тем не менее, имеет довольно развитое сельское хозяйство, в том числе oбработку продуктов, в то время как Дунайский регион в Сербии является одним из лидеров в области сербского сельского хозяйства. В Дунайском регионе Сербии, в принципе, и в Сербии в целом, из-за климата, почвы и других факторов, можно изготовить ряд сельскохозяйственных культур, которые обычно дают более низкие урожаи в районе Волго-Вятском, и есть разнообразие культур особенно кукурузы, фруктов и овощей, винограда, которые трудно растут или не выращиваются в Волго-Вятском районе. Техническое сотрудничество и торгово-экономического сотрудничества между двумя регионами может происходить на гораздо более широком уровне два традиционно дружественних народов и стран, а что является предметом данной статьи. English Abstract. The paper analyzes the existing conditions and current results in agricultural production in the Volga-Viatka Region and the Danube Region. The Volga-Viatka Region lies north of the vast high-quality chernozem area in Russia, covered by the highest-quality soil for farm production. However, it is characterized by quite developed agriculture, including the processing industry, while the Danube Region in Serbia is amongst the leading farming regions in Serbia. Due to their climatic, pedological and other factor, the Danube Region as well as Serbia as a whole, are suitable for the production of a number of cultures that yield less in the Volga-Viat Region. Professional as well as commercial and economic cooperation between the two regions can be elevated to a significantly higher level, as between the two traditionally friendly nations and countries, which is the subject of this paper.
    Keywords: Волго-Вятский экономический район; Дунайский регион Сербии; развитие сельского хозяйства и обработки продуктов; растениеводство; физико-географическая предрасположенность; профессиональное и торгово-экономическое сотрудничество Volga-Viat economical region; Danube region of Serbia; development of agriculture and processing industry; agricultural production; physical and geographical conditions; professional and commercial and economic cooperation.
    JEL: O13 O57 R11
    Date: 2016
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:75140&r=cis
  2. By: Crozet, Matthieu; Hinz, Julian
    Abstract: Economic sanctions are a frequent instrument of foreign policy. In a diplomatic conflict, they aim to elicit a change in the policies of foreign governments by damaging their economy. However, sanctions are not costless for the sending economy, where domestic firms involved in business with the target countries might incur economic damages. This paper evaluates these costs in terms of export losses of the diplomatic crisis that started in 2014 between the Russian Federation and 37 countries, (including the United States, the EU, and Japan) over the Ukrainian conflict for the implicated countries. We first gauge the impact of the sanctions' regime using a structural gravity framework and quantify the trade losses in a general equilibrium counterfactual analysis. We estimate this loss at US$114 billion from 2014 until the end of 2015, with US$ 44 billion being borne by sanctioning Western countries. Interestingly, we find that the bulk of the impact stems from products that are not directly targeted by Russian retaliations (taking the form of an embargo on imports of agricultural products). This result suggests that most of the losses are not attributable to the Russian retaliation but to Western sanctions. We then investigate the underlying mechanism at the firm level using French customs data. Results indicate that neither consumer boycotts nor perceived country risk can account for the decline in exports of products that are not targeted by the Russian embargo. Instead, the disruption of the provision of trade finance services is found to have played an important role.
    Keywords: Sanctions,Trade,Foreign policy,Boycott,Embargo,Trade finance
    JEL: F51 F14 F13 F52
    Date: 2016
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifwkwp:2059&r=cis
  3. By: Olga V. Klimova (National Research University Higher School of Economics)
    Abstract: This study will introduce and examine the work of Sugita Genpaku (20.10.1733-01.06.1817) – “A monologue about foreign ships” (“Yaso:dokuwa” ????) – valuable historical document that introduces the reaction of the Japanese government to the expedition of Khvostov and Davidov to Sakhalin in 1806-1807. It was written in the beginning of the 19th century, the period which is believed to be a turning point in the early Russo-Japanese relationship, when Russia began to be perceived as a major dangerous enemy. This unique document, which is hardly ever mentioned in the researches, stands out in long list of Japanese archive documents of the 19th century as one of the very few that depicts Russia as a possible trade partner and not the enemy. It was originally written by Sugita Genpaku in 1807 and was published for the first time in 1934 as a part of the multi-volume book called “The thoughts of Great Japan” (Dainippon shiso: zenshu: ???????). However, in spite of that it has been ignored by the majority of scholars throughout the world including Russia and Japan. This study will introduce the most interesting parts of the work, which describes the response of the Japanese government to the actions of two Russian officers – lieutenant Khvostov (1776–1809) and midshipman Davidov (1784?–1809) at Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands in 1806 and 1807. This paper will answer following questions: what was the image of Russia in Japan? What impact did the expedition to Sakhalin have on Japanese government and society? What was the best way to address the challenges Japan was facing and could the trade with Russia help to solve them?
    Keywords: Sugita Genpaku, Sakhalin, Russia, Japan, Khvostov.
    JEL: Z
    Date: 2016
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:135/hum/2016&r=cis
  4. By: Andrei Yakovlev (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Anton Kazun (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Daniil Sitkevich (National Research University Higher School of Economics)
    Abstract: This paper reviews the activity of professional legal organizations as factors in the transfer from limited access order (LAO) to open access order (OAO) according to the theory of North, Wallis and Weingast. By analyzing the experience of lawyers’ collective action in developing countries, this paper proposes a decision tree explaining the process of the mobilization of the legal community to counter violations of the law by the ruling elite. It shows that this collective action plays a significant role in implementing the rule of law. However, the efficiency of such collective action in a particular country depends on the institutional capacity of its legal association and on the position of the professional elite leading it. The history of the development of Russian legal advocacy shows that exogenous shocks actually stimulate the collective action of lawyers, which in turn compels the government to respond
    Keywords: lawyer, professional elite, collective action, limited access orders, open access orders, professional mobilization.
    JEL: K49 D71 L84
    Date: 2016
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:70/law/2016&r=cis
  5. By: Castañeda Dower, Paul; Pyle, William
    Abstract: Inefficiently organized, factory-dominated cityscapes have been one of the more enduring legacies of the twentieth century experiment with socialist central planning in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Drawing on a unique survey of large, formerly state-owned urban industrial firms in Russia, we explore how land tenure reforms affect the pace at which this legacy is being erased. Specifically, the privatization of plots is shown to promote the development of a rental market that transfers land use rights away from socialist-era industrial users. We address the potential endogeneity of land tenure in two ways, including using a measure of regional variation in urban land policy as an instrumental variable.
    Keywords: land titles, firms, misallocation, transition, urban land, rental market, Russian Federation
    JEL: D22 D23 O18 P25 P26 R14
    Date: 2016–11–16
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bof:bofitp:2016_017&r=cis
  6. By: Amat Adarov (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw); Kateryna Bornukova; Rumen Dobrinsky (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw); Peter Havlik (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw); Gabor Hunya (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw); Dzmitry Kruk; Olga Pindyuk (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw)
    Abstract: Twenty-five years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Belarus stands out as a special case in transition blending, on the one hand, signs of relative prosperity, socially oriented policies and sprouts of entrepreneurships and, on the other hand, remnants of the communist past. The core of the Belarusian economic model throughout most of this period was a combination of external rents and soft budget constraints on the state-owned part of the economy backed by a strong system of administrative control. In periods of favourable external conditions this mix provided for relatively high rates of economic growth and allowed the authorities to maintain a ‘social contract’ with the population targeting close to full employment. But this model also led to the persistent accumulation of a quasi-fiscal deficit which time and again came to the surface, and its subsequent monetisation provoked macroeconomic and currency turmoil. At present, Belarus’ economic model has run up against its limits and policy changes seem inevitable.
    Keywords: Belarus, economic transformation, macroeconomic policy, soft budget constraints, currency crisis
    JEL: E65 O52 P30 P52
    Date: 2016–11
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wii:rpaper:rr:413&r=cis
  7. By: Ilya Lokshin (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Anastasia Samorodova (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Evgenia Skoptsova (National Research University Higher School of Economics)
    Abstract: The paper develops the ideas centered around the proposition that high total factor productivity (TFP) is conducive to social cooperation by drawing the interests of economic and, in more general terms, social agents together. In the first part of the paper, a simple theoretical framework is presented that leads to a typology of social orders which is based upon the stimuli of social agents for cooperation and predation. In the second part, a tentative empirical analysis is conducted (panel-data regression with fixed effects) which provides a crude testimony for the plausibility of the theoretical claim that high TFP is associated with cooperation-fostering institutions. The third part of the paper elaborates on the results of empirical analysis and presents some further hypotheses which are concerned with two quite different subject-matters: on the one hand, with the role of TFP as a possible factor of social cooperation; on the other hand, with the typology of social orders proposed by North, Wallis and Weingast in their “Violence and Social Orders”. The latter theme is integrated in the discussion about TFP, cooperation and predation
    Keywords: Russian Federation, vocational education and training (VET), skill formation, coordinated and liberal market economies, collective dilemmas
    JEL: Z
    Date: 2016
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:39/ps/2016&r=cis

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