Article
Гарантии инвестиций в международном инвестиционном праве: Многостороннее агентство по гарантиям инвестиций
The institute of investment operations guarantees is designed to ensure, through legal measures, a relative stability of reproduction and freedom of capital movement in the world economic system amid the backdrop of social, economic and political crisis. The notion of investment guarantee stands for the investment insurance mechanism both on the state and the state-by-state basis, aimed at compensation for damages caused to a foreign investor upon occurrence of events economically affecting the investment. The article discusses the activity of the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) established under the Seoul Convention. MIGA's guarantee opportunities, conditions for granting investment guarantees and risks which could be covered by the Agency's guarantees are specified.
Concerns about population ageing apply to both developed and many developing countries and it has turned into a global issue. In the forthcoming decades the population ageing is likely to become one of the most important processes determining the future society characteristics and the direction of technological development. The present paper analyzes some aspects of the population ageing and its important consequences for particular societies and the whole world. Basing on this analysis, we can draw a conclusion that the future technological breakthrough is likely to take place in the 2030s (which we define as the final phase of the Cybernetic Revolution). In the 2020s – 2030s we will expect the upswing of the forthcoming sixth Kondratieff wave, which will introduce the sixth technological paradigm (system). All those revolutionary technological changes will be connected, first of all, with breakthroughs in medicine and related technologies. We also present our ideas about the financial instruments that can help to solve the problem of pension provision for an increasing elderly population in the developed countries. We think that a more purposeful use of pension funds' assets together with an allocation (with necessary guarantees) of the latter into education and upgrading skills of young people in developing countries, perhaps, can partially solve the indicated problem in the developed states.
This article considers the notion of categories of foreign investments and foreign investor in the International Investment Law of Russia and Kazakhstan through the prism of three levels of legal regulation – the national legislation, bilateral and multilateral international treaties. National legislation governing foreign investments, despite having based on common legal structures and instruments, in the conceptual framework may differ significantly in the recipient state of foreign investment from that one in the country of origin of a foreign investor. The analysis of investment legislation of Kazakhstan seems to be very important in this context especially after its fundamental modification by the adoption of Business Code in 2015. This circumstance is fully applicable to the legislation of Russia and Georgia, simultaneously being participants of three of the integration processes – in the framework of the CIS, the EAEU and the SCO.
We analyze institutional determinants of the development of local currency (LCY) corporate bond markets in the period from 2010 to 2016. We consider a wide range of indicators of the quality of institutional environment: the Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom, the Worldwide governance indicators, the World Economic Forum’s indicators of corporate culture, development and regulation of financial markets. Unlike most previous studies, we test not only static regression models (multifactor linear regressions), but also dynamic models based on the generalized method of moments, which allows to solve the problem of endogeneity of variables.
The results show that low quality of institutional environment, macroeconomic and financial instability stimulate growth of the share of LCY corporate bonds in the total issuance volume. In the periods of instability LCY corporate bonds become less attractive for foreign investors, and issuers are forced to raise capital in the domestic market. The most significant factors in both static and dynamic model specifications are the World Bank’s indicators of regulatory quality and rule of law. A decline in sovereign credit ratings also gives impetus to the development of LCY corporate bond markets.
An original result is that more developed stock markets suppress the growth of LCY corporate bond markets: equity and corporate bonds are competing financing sources for companies from developing countries. A developed banking sector contributes to the growth of the LCY corporate bond market: banks act as dealers and market makers. Devaluation of the national currency has a significant positive influence on the explained variable.
This article considers the notion of categories of foreign investments and foreign investor in the International Investment Law of Russia and Turkmenistan through the prism of three levels of legal regulation – the national legislation, bilateral and multilateral international treaties. National legislation governing foreign investments, despite having based on common legal structures and instruments, in the conceptual framework may differ significantly in the recipient state of foreign investment from that one in the country of origin of a foreign investor. This circumstance is fully applicable to the legislation of Russia and Turkmenistan, simultaneously being participants of integration process on the post-Soviet territory in the framework of the CIS.
Strong distinction between contractual claims and claims arising out of bilateral investment treaties (BIT) exists in modern investment disputes resolution. This distinction has a practical importance when the competence of international tribunal to decide the claim is in question, because investment contract and BIT contain different dispute resolution provisions. The common mechanism of dealing with this conflict is introduction of umbrella clause in the particular BIT. Umbrella clause is the clause lifting the breach of contract between investor and host state to the level of breach of BIT between this state and investor’s home country. The role of umbrella clauses in international investment law and the issue of competence conflicts arising of them are analyzed in this article.
Five papers analyze the bidirectional relationship between poverty and migration in developing countries. Papers discuss the patterns of migration in Tanzania (Kathleen Beegle, Joachim De Weerdt, and Stefan Dercon); work-related migration and poverty reduction in Nepal (Michael Lokshin, Mikhail Bontch-Osmolovski, and Elena Glinskaya); the evolution of Albanian migration and its role in poverty reduction (Carlo Azzarri, Gero Carletto, Benjamin Davis, and Alberto Zezza); migration choices, inequality of opportunities, and poverty reduction in Nicaragua (Edmundo Murrugarra and Catalina Herrera); and how developing country governments can facilitate international migration for poverty reduction (John Gibson and David McKenzie). Murrugarra is Senior Economist in the Latin America and Caribbean Region at the World Bank. Larrison is a PhD candidate and Assistant Teacher in the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration at George Washington University. Sasin is Economist in the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Department at the World Bank. Index.
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.