Publications

The present article follows two objectives. First, to apply a recently developed spatial interaction model and discuss its power in explaining social developments. Second, to obtain information on internal migration'sdeterminants in Russia by taking into account that its eastern and western regions differ in many respects. Two alternative panel specifications are considered, labelled “spatial interaction specification with exogenous spatial lags” and “gravity-type specification with network effects”. While both specifications are designed to capture the impacts of neighbouring regions in migration dynamics, they differ with respect to the implementation of fixed effects. It is argued that neighbourhood impacts manifest themselves either as spillover effects, which amplify a variable's impact, or competition effects, which attenuate them. The results show that variables indeed differ from each other in these respects, demonstrating how migration patterns are subject to events beyond the directly involved regions, and that these are furthermore influenced by the distances between regions. In addition, the results provide further evidence that migration determinants differ for Eastern and Western Russia.

 

The chapter analyzes the influence of K. Marx's "Capital" on reformist Populism, legal Marxism and Katheder-sozialismus in Russia. Special attention is paid to heated discussions about the stages of Russia's economic development in comparison with Western Europe. 

Ufnarovski remarked in 1990 that it is unknown whether any finitely presented associative algebra of linear growth is automaton, that is, whether the set of normal words in the algebra form a regular language. If the algebra is graded, then the rationality of the Hilbert series of the algebra follows from the affirmative answer to Ufnarovski’s question. Assuming that the ground field has a positive characteristic, we show that the answer to Ufnarovskii’s question is positive for graded algebras if and only if the basic field is an algebraic extension of its prime subfield. Moreover, in the “only if” part we show that there exists a finitely presented graded algebra of linear growth with irrational Hilbert series. In addition, over an arbitrary infinite basic field, the set of Hilbert series of the quadratic algebras of linear growth with 5 generators is infinite. Our approach is based on a connection with the dynamical Mordell–Lang conjecture. This conjecture describes the intersection of an orbit of an algebraic variety endomorphism with a subvariety. We show that the positive answer to Ufnarovski’s question implies some known cases of the dynamical Mordell– Lang conjecture. In particular, the positive answer for a class of algebras is equivalent to the Skolem–Mahler–Lech theorem which says that the set of the zero elements of any linear recurrent sequence over a zero characteristic field is the finite union of several arithmetic progressions. In particular, the counterexamples to this theorem in the positive characteristic case give examples of algebras with irrational Hilbert series.

As a result of the climate change the situation in Arctic area leads to several important consequences. On the one hand, fossil fuels can be exploited much easier than before. On the other hand, their excavation leads to serious potential threats to fishing by changing natural habitats which in turn creates serious damage to the countries’ economies. Another set of problems arises due to the extension of navigable season for shipping routes. Thus, there are already discussions on how should resources be allocated among countries. In Aleskerov and Victorova (An analysis of potential conflict zones in the Arctic Region, HSE Publishing House, Moscow, 2015) a model was presented analyzing preferences of the countries interested in natural resources and revealing potential conflicts among them. We present several areas allocation models based on different preferences over resources among interested countries. As a result, we constructed several allocations where areas are assigned to countries with respect to the distance or the total interest, or according to the procedure which is counterpart of the Adjusted Winner procedure. We consider this work as an attempt to help decision-making authorities in their complex work on adjusting preferences and conducting negotiations in the Arctic zone. We would like to emphasize that these models can be easily extended to larger number of parameters, to the case when some areas for some reasons should be excluded from consideration, to the case with ‘weighted’ preferences with respect to some parameters. And we strongly believe that such models and evaluations based on them can be helpful for the process of corresponding decision making.

In this paper we describe a methodology that allows researchers to measure empirically, in the form of well-defined indicators, the extent to which economic analysis and evidence is been applied in the enforcement of competition law, using data collected from the decisions of competition authorities. By mapping the value of these indicators to different legal standards, our methodology also allows one to identify the legal standards adopted in the assessment of different conducts that were investigated by the authorities. The policy implications of empirical work in this area are potentially very important, since the extent to which economic analysis is applied in the assessment of anti-competitive conduct by competition authorities may well influence the quality of this assessment (i.e. the quality of enforcing competition law, measured by the extent to which decision-errors and deterrence effects are minimised). Empirical analysis using the indicators can be used to undertake comparative analysis in different countries, to examine the extent to which authorities favour specific legal standards in the assessment of specific conducts and the way in which the judicial review process treats decisions depending on the legal standard used.

The paper develops a new extension of the sequential preference condition, which leads to unique stable matching in all subpopulations, obtained by consistent restrictions of the marriage matching problem. Under the new condition, the Gale–Shapley algorithm is stable, consistent, strategy-proof, Pareto optimal for men, and Pareto optimal for women.

The paper illustrates how a Bayesian approach to yield fitting can be implemented in a non-parametric framework with automatic smoothing inferred from the data. It also briefly illustrates the advantages of such an an approach using real data.

The paper uses an infinite dimensional (functional space) approach to inverse problems. Numerical computations are carried out using a Markov Chain Monte-Carlo algorithm with several tweaks to ensure good performance. The model explicitly uses bid-ask spreads to allow for observation errors and provides automatic smoothing based on them.

A non-parametric framework allows to capture complex shapes of zero-coupon yield curves typical for emerging markets. Bayesian approach allows to assess the precision of estimates, which is crucial for some applications. Examples of estimation results are reported for three different bond markets: liquid (German), medium liquidity (Chinese) and illiquid (Russian).

The result shows that infinite-dimensional Bayesian approach to term structure estimation is feasible. Market practitioners could use this approach to gain more insight into interest rates term structure. For example, they could now be able to complement their non-parametric term structure estimates with Bayesian confidence intervals, which would allow them to assess statistical significance of their results.

The model does not require parameter tuning during estimation. It has its own parameters, but they are to be selected during model setup.

This article analyses antitrust enforcement practice in Russian courts in the area of competition-restricting agreements. The analysis is based on the court decision database of litigations with the Russian competition authority (the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS)). In the database litigations that officially started in the period 2008–2012 were included. Final court decisions were evaluated, taking into account litigation duration (sometimes up to 3 years). The database contains 400 cases, including 236 horizontal agreements and 164 other agreements (mostly vertical agreements). Based on the evidence of this database, important features and problems of the interpretation and implementation of competition law in Russia and priority areas of enforcement were identified. Antitrust policy was analysed taking into account the risks of type 1 and type 2 errors, including the problem of flexibility of prohibitions (per se vs Rule of reason (ROR) approaches), standards of proof and the problem of consistency of enforcement.

We propose an original approach to constructing an index of efficiency of FDI transformation into steady economic and innovation growth. As factors of efficient transformation we consider many institutional indicators. We rank countries on the sample of 31 developed and developing economies. The results of bivariate and multivariate Granger tests show that FDI causes economic development and intellectual capital in a number of indicators. With non-parametric DEA method and Malmquist Index we identify countries at the efficiency frontier by the quality of FDI management. Change in efficiency over time along the IC growth path is highly influenced by government effectiveness.

We explain a lack of civic culture in today’s Russia, closely related to democratic deficit in the country, by a path-dependency which has originated at the critical juncture of transition to market economy. Suppression of democracy in the early 1990s to expedite unpopular reform had exposed the new institutional order to oligarchic capture and set in motion a vicious circle of extractive economic and political institutions. The latter have been shaping views and attitudes in the society via institutional learning, continuously suppressing civic culture and solidifying social foundations for extractive institutions. We present evidence from the World Values Survey supporting the above conclusions.

Explicit two-level in time and symmetric in space finite-difference schemes constructed by approximating the 1D barotropic quasi-gas-/quasi-hydrodynamic systems of equations are studied. The schemes are linearized about a constant solution with a nonzero velocity, and, for them, necessary and sufficient conditions for the L2-dissipativity of solutions to the Cauchy problem are derived depending on the Mach number. These conditions differ from one another by at most twice. The results substantially develop the ones known for the linearized Lax–Wendroff scheme. Numerical experiments are performed to analyze the applicability of the found conditions in the nonlinear formulation to several schemes for different Mach numbers.

How do elections and post-election protest shape political trust in a competitive autocracy? Taking advantage of largely exogenous variation in the timing of a survey conducted in Moscow in 2011, we find that an election had little systematic effect on political trust, perhaps because vote improprieties were not new information. In contrast, the unexpected protest that followed increased trust in government. We argue that when autocrats permit protest unexpectedly, citizens may update their beliefs about the trustworthiness of the government. In this case, heightened trust arises largely from opposition voters - those most likely to be surprised by permission to hold the protest - who update their beliefs. Our results suggest that citizens may cue not off the content of a protest, but off the government's decision to permit it. In addition, autocrats can increase trust in government by allowing protest when it is unexpected.

We develop a theory of equilibrium market volatility in a general equilibrium duopoly with complete information. The resulting economic system possesses a property, which can be described as ‘natural volatility’ of markets, even if players have complete information. Economy is described as a strategic market game where every player has market power as a buyer and a seller. Players are uncertain about each other’s actions, and due to the properties of expected utility maximization there is no convergence of common beliefs of common knowledge to unique mixed strategies equilibrium, hence, rational expectations approach cannot be applied.  Volatility at the market appears from a multiplicity of equilibrium mixed strategies; they cannot be computed precisely, but only approximated. We identify several Pareto-efficient strategies and study induced prices, allocations and payoffs, which are all volatile. 

The model of the real sector of the Russian economy is presented. It allows for the separate description of GDP and its components by expenditure both in constant and in current prices. Unlike standard macroeconomic models, the model proposed considers a set of Trader agents in addition to Producer agent. Traders are based on a set of CES-functions and allow to decompose the statistics available into a set of unobserved components. The Producer is based on a specific production function that performs well for Russian data and works with financial variables, such as credits and bank accounts. In contrary to the standard approach, the model is not linearized to get estimates of model parameters but is estimated directly using a set of nonlinear equations. The optimization is performed numerically and allows to get both series of unobserved model products and their prices and model parameters. The stability of the solution found is checked on simulated data.

We are constructing an imperfect competition general equilibrium model, with non-consumable money and labor market; our toolkit is an equilibrium default model of Shubik-Wilson (1978). Our result has an ‘equilibrium volatility’ simultaneously occurring at all three markets: labor, goods, and credit market, with a fixed money supply from a bank. A worker and an entrepreneur strategically and simultaneously trade at the three markets. Players are uncertain about each other’s actions, and do not have a convergence of common beliefs of common knowledge. It is impossible to calculate equilibrium mixed strategies exactly, but it is possible to identify some Pareto-efficient strategies and study induced prices, wages, interest rates, default, allocations and payoffs, which are all volatile, and their fluctuations are not independent. We present an equilibrium result, when a total value of default is bigger than total money supply.

For several years, the Russian system of higher education had been undergoing massive transformations related to the enhancement of the global competitiveness of the national academic sector. The introduction of research-oriented universities and the transition to incentive contracts are the main elements of the reform. In this article we show how these institutional changes contribute to reducing the problem of gender inequality in academia. Based on comprehensive data from a Russian faculty survey (MEMO), it is found that there are considerable differences in gender wage inequality by university status: female faculty earn significantly lower salaries in ordinary universities, but there are no gender differences in pay in research-oriented universities, which are most actively transitioning to incentive remuneration schemes. Female faculty experience vertical segregation: women are less likely to achieve senior positions in university hierarchies. We also found indirect evidence of women’s self-selection for lower-paid positions: female faculty are less likely to achieve advanced degrees and to have research publications.  Overall, the study shows that male faculty earns 8.7% higher salaries than female counterparts after controlling for all observable characteristics. Oaxaca decomposition showed that 53% of the gender wage gap can be explained by observable characteristics, while the rest can be attributed to discrimination, self-selection or unobservable factors. In the absence of discrimination, male faculty should earn 10% higher salaries, but due to discrimination and unobservable factors, male faculty, on average, earn 18.7% more. However, the gender wage gap in academia is considerably below the national average: women earned on average around 80% of male salaries in academic sector, while in the whole Russian economy women earned around 70% of men’s wages.

The article reviews long-run sources of Russian economic growth and demonstrates that the stagnation of the Russian economy in the past decade can be considered in the context of the global productivity slowdown. Conventional industry growth accounting shows that in contrast to the transformational recession before 1998, the recent stagnation of 2008-2014 is primarily the outcome of a slowdown in total factor productivity (TFP) growth and a deterioration in the allocation of labour, rather than bottlenecks in capital inputs.

The paper studies the effects of competition on innovation in various technology groups of mature Russian manufacturing firms. The purpose of the research is to establish whether more intense competition is good or bad for innovation, and to learn how the response to competition varies between technology leaders, followers and laggards. The study uses the 2014 survey data, which includes 1920 manufacturing firms from 19 sectors and size groups between 10 and 10,000 employees. The finding is that commitment to product innovation increases with competition at a modest level of competitive pressure, especially if foreign entry and import are considered. However, this result is mostly driven by technologically weak plants, which innovate less than leaders and followers at a low level of competition, but are encouraged to innovate more by a modest increase of competitive pressure, when theoretically predicted optimal behavior would be to refrain from innovation. When competition is strong, plants in all technology groups give up the innovation race. Competition is less influential in explaining process (as opposed to product) innovation, and the findings demonstrate a clear inverted U-shaped link: laggards and leaders are more likely to upgrade process technologies when weak competition increases slightly, and are less likely to do so when strong competition becomes stronger

Based on quarterly data on 31 emerging countries (among which 16 are inflation targeting countries) from 1990Q1 to 2014Q3, we obtain a strong support for the conjecture that the implementation of inflation targeting weakens the Fisherian relation between expected depreciation and the interest rate differential (uncovered interest parity condition) and thus is conducive to the appearance of the forward bias puzzle in emerging countries. We show that this reflects the performance of inflation targeting regimes in lowering the level and volatility of inflation. Our finding holds when controlling for countryspecific effects, time-specific effects, global disinflation, exchange rate management, crises, and using different econometric techniques.

This paper explores age-specific migration flows between regions of Russia. Using age-disaggregated data of the Russian Census 2010, we cluster interregional migration flows based on prevailing age-groups of migrants, analyse diversity and similarity in the choice of age-specific migration destinations and describe general socio-economic characteristics of these flows. It is for the first time that the relationship between migration and migrants’ age and life-cycle events is analysed in the Russian context. Similar to migrants in other countries, migrants in Russia choose the place of residence depending on their age. Migration flows which differ by dominating age group of migrants quite often have opposite destinations, because motivations of migration also differ. Migration follows various stages of the life-cycle: people are born in one region, study in another region, go to work in a different region, and resettle to another place after retirement. Migration modeling turns to be complicated if the impact of age factor is ignored. Therefore, the age of migrants should be considered when analyzing, modeling and interpreting interregional migration in Russia.

To illustrate the role of organizations of lawyers in social changes we analyze the process of transforming legal and socio-political institutions in Russia over the past 30 years.We combine the theory of legal mobilization with the concept of violence and social orders proposed by North, Wallis and Weingast to describe the general logic of this process. Russian case shows that exogenous shocks stimulate collective action of criminal defence lawyers which, in turn, compel the government to respond. The state can promote the passivity of the legal community and stop legal mobilization by providing certain preferences for the profession. Even though in the 2000s, Russia took the path of destroying legal institutions, legal profession in certain circumstances could again act as an agent of social change. We conclude that the efficiency of collective action depends on the institutional capacity of legal association and on the position of the professional elite standing at its head.