|
on Confederation of Independent States |
|
Issue of 2020‒02‒03
eight papers chosen by |
| By: | Evgeny A. Khvalkov (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Aleksandra D. Shisterova (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Alena D. Kuznetsova (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This study presents a survey of the formation of the collection of Nikolai Petrovich Likhachev (1862-1936), a great collector and Member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, through his life and research interests. This collection was unique for Russia at that time. As a researcher and a collector, Likhachev laid the foundations for the professional study of watermarks and paper studies, medieval diplomatics and sigillography, scholarly art history (in the sphere of icons) in Russia. The Museum of Palaeography created by Likhachev included rich material on the history of writing in Europe, Asia, North America and the European colonies of the New World, encompassing a wide chronological period - from the turn of the 4-3 millennia BC to the beginning of the 20th century. His collection shaped the schools of the Russian and Soviet Egyptology, Assyriology, Hellenic and Medieval studies, Arabic studies, Byzantine studies, and Slavic studies. The present paper is a contribution to the studies of both his activity as a scholar and an antiquarian, and the shaping of his collection. |
| Keywords: | N.P. Likhachev, collection, antiquarian, institutions, Latin palaeography, Italy, medieval, diplomatic, coins, deeds, documents, seals. |
| JEL: | Z |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:183/hum/2019&r=all |
| By: | Evguenia Bessonova; Anna Tsvetkova |
| Abstract: | The paper focuses on trends in the convergence of labour and multifactor productivity in Russia. Using firm-level data for the 2011-2016 period, we obtain the following result: low-productivity firms grow faster than high-productivity ones. Despite this, the initial gap between the most and the least productive firms in the Russian economy is so wide that it is hardly possible to overcome in the short term. Moreover, we find that this gap has increased over the 2011-2016 period, suggesting divergence in productivity levels of Russian firms. To verify the divergence within narrowly defined industries, we also use the stochastic frontier analysis. Our estimates confirm divergence in most industries. |
| Keywords: | productivity gap, beta-convergence, sigma-convergence, stochastic frontier analysis. |
| JEL: | D24 E22 O47 |
| Date: | 2019–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bkr:wpaper:wps51&r=all |
| By: | Marinova, Tsvetelina; Nenovsky, Nikolay |
| Abstract: | In this paper we have proposed an institutional reconstruction of the Bulgarian agricultural cooperatives’ history. The aim was to find the theoretical explanation of the complete deprivation of individuality of the agricultural cooperatives in the years of communism and their rejection respectively during the post-communist period. We consider that a relevant explanation was the accumulation of two institutional processes which were related to the nationalization of the cooperative sector and the cooperative idea. The first one may be referred to as being inertial and related to the specificities of the Bulgarian lagging behind and peripheral capitalism from the beginning of 20th century. That capitalism had a state character. The second institutional process occurred mainly in the wake of WWII. It was related to the large scale and actually mechanical application (despite some nominal specificities) of the Soviet model of agriculture and of the communist ideas of the place of that sector in the planned and all people’s economy. It must be underscored that the ideas of the agricultural cooperatives and the organization of agriculture coming from Russia and later from the USSR also played a definite role for shaping up the general understanding of cooperatives in Bulgaria. |
| Keywords: | agricultural cooperatives, communism, Soviet agrarian model, Bulgaria, institutional reconstruction |
| JEL: | N53 P13 |
| Date: | 2020–01–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:98155&r=all |
| By: | Leonardo Bursztyn; Georgy Egorov; Ruben Enikolopov; Maria Petrova |
| Abstract: | We study the causal effect of social media on ethnic hate crimes and xenophobic attitudes in Russia using quasi-exogenous variation in social media penetration across cities. Higher penetration of social media led to more ethnic hate crimes, but only in cities with a high pre-existing level of nationalist sentiment. Consistent with a mechanism of coordination of crimes, the effects are stronger for crimes with multiple perpetrators. We implement a national survey experiment and show that social media persuaded young and low-educated individuals to hold more xenophobic attitudes, but did not increase respondents' openness to expressing these views. Our results are consistent with a simple model of social learning where penetration of social networks increases individuals' propensity to meet like-minded people. |
| JEL: | D7 H0 J15 |
| Date: | 2019–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26567&r=all |
| By: | Anthony Venables; Julia Bird; Mathilde Lebrand |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a computable spatial equilibrium model of Central Asia and uses it to analyze the possible effects of the Belt and Road Initiative on the economy of the region. The model captures international and subnational economic units and their connectivity to each other and the rest of the world. Aggregate real income gains from the Belt Road Initiative range from less than 2 percent of regional income if adjustment mechanisms take the form of conventional Armington and monopolistic competition, to around 3 percent if there are localization economies of scale and labor mobility. In the latter case, there are sizeable geographical variations in impact, with some areas developing clusters of economic activity with income increases of as much as 12 percent and a doubling of local populations, while other areas stagnate or even decline. |
| Keywords: | regional integration, transport infrastructure, spatial modeling, economic geography, Central Asia. |
| JEL: | F12 F15 R11 R13 |
| Date: | 2020–01–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:wpaper:897&r=all |
| By: | Schindler, Sebastian; Wille, Tobias (Goethe University Frankfurt) |
| Abstract: | The end of the Cold War led to intense debates about how change happens in international politics. In this article, we argue that practice theory has great potential for illuminating this question. Drawing on Vincent Pouliot's empirical analysis of NATO-Russia relations after the end of the Cold War, we elaborate how change happens in and through practice. We show that post-Cold War security practices are inherently unstable, because there is a fundamental uncertainty about whether the Cold War is really over or whether the Cold War logic of bipolar confrontation still applies. Uncertainty about the meaning of the past destabilizes present practices and thus makes sudden and drastic change possible. To date, many contributions to the literature on international practices have, however, failed to grasp the inherent instability of practice. We argue that this failure is due to a particular conception of change that can be found in the works of Pierre Bourdieu. Through a close reading of Pouliot's Bourdieusian analysis of post-Cold War politics, we demonstrate the limitations of such a perspective, notably that it is unable to grasp how change originates in practice. |
| Date: | 2017–12–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:7bgmn&r=all |
| By: | Aleksandra V. Chirkova (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Evgeny A. Khvalkov (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Daria A. Ageeva (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Maksim D. Shkil (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Viktoria V. Shaparenko (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | The collection of Western European manuscripts gathered by Nikolai Petrovich Likhachev (1862–1936) and currently stored in the Scientific and Historical archive of the St. Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences (the Archive) contains, among other documents, a number of those coming from the Latin West. The vast majority of this array comes from Italy (about 5,000 documents), of which about a third are original notarial deeds. There are over 10,000 storage units related to the history of Italy in the collection of the Western European section of the Archive. The collection is divided into fonds, and the focus of this research is on the 6th collection, “Venice and its possessions”, containing notarial deeds analysed by a team of scholars. These manuscripts provide information about economic and social aspects of life in the rural communes of Val d’Astico, located in Northern Vicentino. Here we describe the geographical and historical peculiarities of the region in order to place the documents in their particular context and to better understand it. All of these documents are instrumenta rather than imbreviaturae, and, at least when it comes to the deeds drawn up by Pietro di Zennaro, we can treat this set as having a certain unity. Within this study, one of our main objectives was preparation of these documents for critical publication. The source material studied here still has to be contextualized and researched in a more profound manner; however, we can clearly see now that the investigation of the deeds stored here are more than promising. |
| Keywords: | History of Italy, 14–16th centuries, Venetian Republic, Vicenza, notaries, notarial deeds, diplomatic, Latin palaeography. |
| JEL: | Z |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:184/hum/2019&r=all |
| By: | Chuluunbayar, Delgerjargal |
| Abstract: | The transmission of monetary policy has been found to differ between countries in the empirical literature. Understanding the degree to which each gross domestic product (GDP) component - investment, consumption and net export - is affected by policy changes is essential to conducting monetary policy. This paper examines the output composition of monetary policy transmission in Mongolia based on data from 2005Q1 to 2019Q2 and three kinds of benchmark VAR models. It is also comparing the results with other countries, finding Mongolian monetary policy transmission is dominated by the investment channel and its response is quicker than comparator countries. |
| Keywords: | Monetary policy transmission, output composition, Vector Auto Regression |
| JEL: | C32 E52 |
| Date: | 2019–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:98111&r=all |