Article
Современные домовладельцы в России и за рубежом
Democratically elected municipal government had no housing role in the Soviet era in Russia, as all housing belonged to the central state and was administered by its local agents. After 1990, a massive privatization of housing was achieved first through the transfer of stock from industrial companies to municipalities and then through no-cost transfer of ownership to the tenants. But the municipalities who lost this briefly-held housing stock to privatization now find themselves owners of 11% of all the housing in Russia: much more in some regions. Poor condition stock and the inability of the new owners to meet maintenance costs have led to a growing housing role for local authorities, who have many new responsibilities and expectations from local residents, but few resources. Although the situation has parallels in other post-socialist countries, the scale in Russia is greater, and there is no EU aid, nor any tradition either of ownership or of collective responsibility. Economic crisis in Europe and a slow down in housing construction in Russia mean that new policies for rental housing are needed. This review considers historic and recent changes in housing policy in the Russian Federation in the light of the emerging housing rôle of municipal governments. In the review we draw on national data as well an in-depth case study of the city of Perm to illustrate the impact of this transformation. Following a national meeting of housing experts in 2011, a new Government Strategy for 2020 has been established and is also discussed.
This volume intends to fill the gap in the range of publications about the post-transition social housing policy developments in Central and Eastern Europe by delivering critical evaluations about the past two decades of developments in selected countries’ social housing sectors, and showing what conditions have decisively impacted these processes.
Contributors depict the different paths the countries have taken by reviewing the policy changes, the conditions institutions work within, and the solutions that were selected to answer the housing needs of vulnerable households. They discuss whether the differences among the countries have emerged due to the time lag caused by belated reforms in selected countries, or whether any of the disparities can be attributed to differences inherited from Soviet times. Since some of the countries have recently become member states of the European Union, the volume also explores whether there were any convergence trends in the policy approaches to social housing that can be attributed to the general changes brought about by the EU accession.
This article sets out to describe the current situation in the social housing sector in Russia. The author presents the historical background of social housing in Russia, it’s development and current conditions in the context of the transition from planned housing sector to one governed by market relations. The article also contains the analysis of the key structural elements of the social housing sector and expert evaluation of how well the social housing works as a mechanism for improving the housing conditions of the poor and vulnerable groups of population. The important role in the article is given to the legal status of social housing tenants, rent-setting policies and the problems of social housing finance. The main development opportunities and the main challenges for housing policy are revealed in the final sections of the article.
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.
The article is devoted to the study of the authoritarianism prevalent in the mass consciousness of Russians. The article describes a new approach to the consideration of the authoritarian syndrome as the effects of the cultural trauma as a result of political and socio-cultural transformation of society. The article shows the dynamics of the symptoms of the authoritarianism, which appear in the mass consciousness of Russians from 1993 to 2011. This paper proposes a package of measures aimed at reducing the level of the authoritarianism in Russian society.
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.