nep-cis New Economics Papers
on Confederation of Independent States
Issue of 2019‒09‒02
seven papers chosen by
Alexander Harin
Modern University for the Humanities

  1. Economic integration and macroeconomic shocks in Eurasia By Gharleghi, Behrooz
  2. Bearing the cost of politics: Consumer prices and welfare in Russia By Hinz, Julian; Monastyrenko, Evgenii
  3. Inter-Regional Population Re-distribution in Soviet Russia Revisited By Kumo, Kazuhiro
  4. BUSINESS CLIMATE INDICATOR IN MANUFACTURING, MEDIUM- AND HIGH-TECH INDUSTRIES IN RUSSIA By Liudmila Kitrar; Tamara Lipkind
  5. Extreme Temperature and Extreme Violence across Age and Gender: Evidence from Russia By Popova, Olga; Otrachshenko, Vladimir; Tavares, José
  6. Tax Farming – Pro ET Contra By Dmitry L. Komyagin
  7. Socialism and the Right of Inheritance: A Discussion on the Reform of the Soviet Civil Law in the Late 1930s By Kawamoto, Kazuko

  1. By: Gharleghi, Behrooz
    Abstract: The main objective of this research is to make an assessment of the symmetry/asymmetry of underlying macroeconomic shocks in the Eurasia region. A model is developed to distinguish structural global supply shocks, regional supply shocks, and domestic supply shocks using a reduced-form structural vector autoregressive model (SVAR). Empirical results reveal that the correlation between domestic and regional shocks, as well as between domestic and global shocks, are clearly divided into two groups of countries: (i) domestic (country-specific) supply shocks are more correlated with global shocks in the European part of the region (Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, and Ukraine; with the exception of Mongolia here); and (ii) domestic shocks are mostly correlated with regional shocks in the Central Asian part of the region (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan; with the exception of Moldova here). This has implications for the Chinese economy in the region.
    Keywords: Eurasia, China, Macroeconomic shocks
    JEL: E50 E60
    Date: 2019–08–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:95545&r=all
  2. By: Hinz, Julian; Monastyrenko, Evgenii
    Abstract: In August 2014, the Russian Federation implemented an embargo on select food and agricultural imports from Western countries in response to the economic sanctions. The measure was designed to harm producers in United States, European Union, Norway, Ukraine, along other Western countries. In this study we quantify the effect of the embargo for welfare and consumer prices in Russia. We first provide evidence for the direct effect on consumer prices with a difference-in-differences approach with a highly detailed monthly dataset of consumer prices in Russia between 2011-2016. The results suggest that the embargo caused consumer prices of embargoed goods to rise in the short run by 8.9% - 12.6%. Regions of Russia with previously above-average levels of food imports from sanctioned countries experienced a stronger impact. In the medium run the effect reduces to 1.2% - 6.3%. The results also indicate that the policy shock has been transmitted to non-embargoed sectors by means of domestic inputoutput production linkages. We then use a Ricardian model of trade with domestic sectoral linkages, trade in intermediate goods and sectoral heterogeneity in production to perform counterfactual simulations, isolate the direct and indirect price effects, and compute welfare measures for a situation without embargo. Our simulations suggest that the self-imposed embargo caused a decline in Russian welfare by 1.88% and an increase in the overall price index by 0.19%.
    Keywords: Trade policy,Embargo,Consumer prices,Sectoral linkages
    JEL: F10 F13 F14 F51
    Date: 2019
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifwkwp:2119&r=all
  3. By: Kumo, Kazuhiro
    Abstract: Discourses over interregional migration at the time of the Soviet era have shown that the government control on population redistribution was effective at the early Soviet period, but in the late Soviet era the effects of incentive mechanisms including national investment became limited. This certainly can be expectable, but it is also undeniable that such assertion was inconsistent with the phenomenon. Indeed the population influx was continuously seen in Far East or Extreme North regions even at the very end of the Soviet period, suggesting the possibility of effective governmental management on geographical redistribution of population. This paper confirmed the effectiveness of the governmental control on population migration in the late Soviet era, using newly available data. It was suggested that the analytical unit utilized in previous studies (Economic Regions or cities) may involve problems, so that the effect of various factors could not be accurately grasped. This shows the necessity of further verification of the results that have been obtained during the Soviet era.
    Keywords: Russia, Interregional Migration, Soviet Union, Origin-to-Destination Matrix
    Date: 2019–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:hitcei:2019-2&r=all
  4. By: Liudmila Kitrar (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Tamara Lipkind (National Research University Higher School of Economics)
    Abstract: The paper presents the Business Climate Indicator (BCI) in the Russian manufacturing including the medium and high-tech (MHT) manufacturing industries. The authors explain the feasibility of a new alternative measure that summarizes common information of business tendency surveys cleared up of specific fluctuations in individual variables, and give arguments to prove its effectiveness. The resulting BCI reflects the quantitative changes in manufacturing growth more accurately and with a lead compared to the traditional confidence indicator. Identification of the BCI cyclic profile and its visualization through a tracer demonstrate all significant waves of manufacturers’ optimism and pessimism for the period from January 2005 to January 2019. To construct BCI-MHT, the units of observation and the input information are divided into three groups according to the technological level of industries. The dynamics of BCI-MHT is close to those of BCI; however, during the protracted recession in 2016-2018, the sentiments of manufacturers of medium- and high-tech products were less pessimistic compared with the sentiments of all manufacturers.
    Keywords: business tendency surveys, business climate indicator, medium- and high-tech industries, short-term cycle
    JEL: C38 E32
    Date: 2019
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:96sti2019&r=all
  5. By: Popova, Olga; Otrachshenko, Vladimir; Tavares, José
    Abstract: We examine the relationship between extreme temperatures and violent mortality across Russian regions, with implications for the social costs of climate change. We assess the unequal impact of temperature shocks across gender and age groups by exploring a dataset on temperature and violence in Russia, between the years 1989 and 2015. Hot days lead to an increase in both female and male victims, one hot day resulting in the loss of 1,579 person-years of life for men, and 642 for women. However, the likelihood of victimization during weekends rises noticeably for women, with women between 25 and 59 more victimized on weekends. Our results suggest that female victimization on hot days would be mitigated by increases in regional income and job opportunities, and on cold days, by decreasing the consumption of spirits.
    Keywords: Violence,Gender Homicide,Extreme Temperatures,Russia
    JEL: I14 K42 P52 Q54
    Date: 2019
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:382&r=all
  6. By: Dmitry L. Komyagin (National Research University Higher School of Economics)
    Abstract: This article investigates issues related to a unique experiment carried out in Russia in unifying the collection of all obligatory payments. It analyzes the legal aspects of this approach and presents the variety of methods for collecting such payments. Notions of budget revenue and sources of revenue are considered. Special attention is paid to the forms and practices of tax farming and other obligatory payments. The article concludes that the budget legislation actually specifies various fiscal charges as sources of budget revenue. The real source of public revenue are the assets and resources making up the national wealth. Historical examples show that despite the generally accepted denial, tax farming is a normal method and can be applied along with the state monopoly and tax administration. The cases when tax farming is transformed into a state monopoly or excise and vice versa are not rare. Tax farming, which has continued to this day, is also referred to as parafiscal charges or quasi taxes
    Keywords: taxes; obligatory payments; fiscal charges, tax farming; state regalia, state monopoly; budget; public revenue; sources of revenue
    JEL: Z
    Date: 2019
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:89/law/2019&r=all
  7. By: Kawamoto, Kazuko
    Date: 2019–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:rrcwps:82&r=all

This nep-cis issue is ©2019 by Alexander Harin. It is provided as is without any express or implied warranty. It may be freely redistributed in whole or in part for any purpose. If distributed in part, please include this notice.
General information on the NEP project can be found at http://nep.repec.org. For comments please write to the director of NEP, Marco Novarese at <director@nep.repec.org>. Put “NEP” in the subject, otherwise your mail may be rejected.
NEP’s infrastructure is sponsored by the School of Economics and Finance of Massey University in New Zealand.