Article
Health and health systems in the Commonwealth of Independent States
The countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States diff er substantially in their post-Soviet economic development but face many of the same challenges to health and health systems. Life expectancies dropped steeply in the 1990s, and several countries have yet to recover the levels noted before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Cardiovascular disease is a much bigger killer in the Commonwealth of Independent States than in western Europe because of hazardous alcohol consumption and high smoking rates in men, the breakdown of social safety nets, rising social inequality, and inadequate health services. These former Soviet countries have embarked on reforms to their health systems, often aiming to strengthen primary care, scale back hospital capacities, reform mechanisms for paying providers and pooling funds, and address the overall shortage of public funding for health. However, major challenges remain, such as frequent private out-of-pocket payments for health care and underdeveloped systems for improvement of quality of care.
In article the market of medical insurance is analysed, specifics of the market in St. Petersburg are studied, the problems disturbing to development of medical insurance are formulated and ways of their decision are presented, and also some forecasts concerning growth and development of this type of service in St. Petersburg are submitted.
This paper presents a rich collection of data used to construct an energy security performance index of the eight countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Namely, the index covers Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Russia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan. The data include results of Z-score normalization of 12 distinct indicators, constituting a total of 4 dimensions of energy security performance. These dimensions are the following: energy availability (oil import dependence, coal import dependence, natural gas import dependence), energy affordability (access to electricity, pump price for gasoline, pump price for diesel fuel), energy and economic efficiency (renewable energy consumption, GDP per unit of energy use, electric power consumption), and environmental stewardship (CO2, N2O, and SO2 emissions). Z-scores are calculated for 2000 and 2014, which allows to evaluate energy security performance of the CIS countries in each dimension and in total over the period of 14 years.
Th e last two decades have seen a rapid expansion of Regional trade agreements (RTA) including republics of the Community of Independent States (CIS). Th e reason for this phenomenon is that the RTAs have certain advantages. At the same time the RTAs can greatly complicate the trading environment, creating a web of incoherent rules. In order to avoid a further growing tension between RTAs and Multilateral Trading System there is only one way: harmonizing both.
Like all empires, the Soviet Empire was also based on the distinction centre–periphery. Although the Soviet Empire no longer exists, relationships between centres and peripheries still shape realities in the region. The book analyses the relevance of this distinction for the understanding of political, economic, and cultural realities in the post-Soviet space. Case studies provided by scholars from different countries of the former Soviet Union explore the potential of the distinction in historical as well as in economic and political perspectives.
Conclusions about the influence of the geopolitical contradictions between Russia and the EU on foreign and integration policies seem extremely important in terms of the development of conflicts between the regional central forces themselves, as well as in assessing promising integration blocs and the “choice” of the interacting post-Soviet countries themselves. The instability of their behavior is a direct consequence of the emerging "integration dilemma". Although, one should not forget that the “integration dilemma” itself is needed for each country. In such circumstances, the politics of post-Soviet countries will gravitate towards instability and variability. All these countries have been and remain interested in expanding trade and economic relations simultaneously with Russia and the EU, as well as in obtaining assistance and attracting investment from both sides. “One-way” integration, obviously, was not able to provide the necessary and quicker opportunities for faster economic or political statements. The relationship between the two civilizational (in our case, integration) centers is called limitrophic or political balancing. Its strength is to belong to a particular center of power or community of states. Cooperation policies between countries can become volatile and sometimes speculative. In foreign literature, it should be noted the work of R. Schwedler, who pointed to the tendency of small and medium-sized countries to “bandwagon" to more powerful countries in order to achieve economic advantages. Such examples can be found among all five post-Soviet countries. It is on the example of the post-Soviet space that this article broadens the understanding of the behavior of such countries that are used in the context of the "dilemma of integration". The conflict between relations between Russia and the EU. If we are talking about a military confrontation, it would be logical to use the theoretical achievements of the Cold War by authors such as S. Walt and S. David. However, it is increasingly developing without the use of military forces. In this case, when planning integration strategies, everyone should also correspond to the results.
During many years Tajikistan has been the world leader in terms of the ratio of remittances to GDP. Late 2000s and early 2010s were the years of migration boom when the country’s dependence on financial streams from migration was established and the effects of migration started being evident. Much of these effects were driven by the characteristics of migrants and their households and the context of the country. This chapter reviews recent evidence on the effects that migration has on the lives of households in Tajikistan. Using data from a panel household survey, this chapter describes migrants’ profile and factors of migration decision with a special focus on migrant skills and their households’ wealth.
The paper examines the structure, governance, and balance sheets of state-controlled banks in Russia, which accounted for over 55 percent of the total assets in the country's banking system in early 2012. The author offers a credible estimate of the size of the country's state banking sector by including banks that are indirectly owned by public organizations. Contrary to some predictions based on the theoretical literature on economic transition, he explains the relatively high profitability and efficiency of Russian state-controlled banks by pointing to their competitive position in such functions as acquisition and disposal of assets on behalf of the government. Also suggested in the paper is a different way of looking at market concentration in Russia (by consolidating the market shares of core state-controlled banks), which produces a picture of a more concentrated market than officially reported. Lastly, one of the author's interesting conclusions is that China provides a better benchmark than the formerly centrally planned economies of Central and Eastern Europe by which to assess the viability of state ownership of banks in Russia and to evaluate the country's banking sector.
The paper examines the principles for the supervision of financial conglomerates proposed by BCBS in the consultative document published in December 2011. Moreover, the article proposes a number of suggestions worked out by the authors within the HSE research team.
This work looks at a model of spatial election competition with two candidates who can spend effort in order to increase their popularity through advertisement. It is shown that under certain condition the political programs of the candidates will be different. The work derives the comparative statics of equilibrium policy platform and campaign spending with respect the distribution of voter policy preferences and the proportionality of the electoral system. In particular, it is whown that the equilibrium does not exist if the policy preferences are distributed over too narrow an interval.
The article examines "regulatory requirements" as a subject of state control over business in Russia. The author deliberately does not use the term "the rule of law". The article states that a set of requirements for business is wider than the legislative regulation.
First, the article analyzes the regulatory nature of the requirements, especially in the technical field. The requirements are considered in relation to the rule of law. The article explores approaches to the definition of regulatory requirements in Russian legal science. The author analyzes legislation definitions for a set of requirements for business. The author concludes that regulatory requirements are not always identical to the rule of law. Regulatory requirements are a set of obligatory requirements for entrepreneurs’ economic activity. Validation failure leads to negative consequences.
Second, the article analyzes the problems of the regulatory requirements in practice. Lack of information about the requirements, their irrelevance and inconsistency are problems of the regulatory requirements in Russia.
Many requirements regulating economic activity are not compatible with the current development level of science and technology. The problems are analyzed on the basis of the Russian judicial practice and annual monitoring reports by Higher School of Economics.
Finally, the author provides an approach to the possible solution of the regulatory requirements’ problem. The author proposes to create a nationwide Internet portal about regulatory requirements. The portal should contain full information about all regulatory requirements. The author recommends extending moratorium on the use of the requirements adopted by the bodies and organizations of the former USSR government.
At present many industries reveal tendency for setting up of vertically integrated companies (VIC) the structure of which unites all technological processes. This tendency proved its efficiency in oil industry where coordination of all successive stages of technological process, namely, oil prospecting and production -oil transportation - oil processing - oil chemistry - oil products and oil chemicals marketing, is necessary. The article considers specific features of introduction of "personnel management" module at enterprises of oil and gas industry.
vertically integrated companies; personnel management