The article considers influence of entrepreneurial experience on the wageemployment wages. Empirical analysis is based on the RLMS-HSE panel data, 2000—2013, with using fixed effects models on the overall sample, five-year- and flexible window. Results show that transition from entrepreneurship to wageemployment leads to penalty of wages. Wage growth rate of former entrepreneurs’ lag behind the wage growth rate of workers without entrepreneurial experience. The size of wage-penalty decreases if the profession remains the same in transition from entrepreneurship to wage-employment.

The paper analyses recent sociological and epistemological trends in the evolution of economics as a scientific enterprise and as a social institution and tries to evaluate its current state and further perspectives. It concludes that now there is neither triumph nor crisis in modern economic science. Rather, economics is in an ordinary working state though not very promising since the period of big theoretical ideas seems to be over for it, since new atheoretical tendency in it is becoming stronger, and since it would become more and more interventionistic in the nearest future.   

The article compares two approaches to the analysis of corruption: a global corruption paradigm – a downstream view on corruption promoted by international organisations and policy makers, the so-called outsiders, and analysis of informal practices – an upstream, or bottom-up, perspective of insiders, which contexualises motives and meaning of corrupt practices. The global corruption paradigm rests on the premises that corruption can be defined, measured and controlled. Since the 1990s, data on corruption have been systematically collected and monitored, yet there has been little progress in combatting the phenomenon across the globe. Success cases are rare, and policy makers are increasingly dissatisfied with the existing indicators and approaches to anticorruption policyies. On the one hand, the paper articulates the critique of assumptions, preconceptions and methodology implicit in the prevailing ‘corruption paradigm’. We question the cultural and historical neutrality of the definition of corruption; problems with the measurement of corruption; and the implications for policy-making. On the other hand, the paper argues for the ‘disaggregation’ of the corruption paradigm and necessity to integrate local knowledge and insiders’ perspectives into corruption studies. We argue that the combination of the two approaches will provide for more effective ways of tackling the challenges of corruption, especially in endemically corrupt systems.

The article describes the evolution of the accounting knowledge from the simple registration technique to economic and social institution, in medieval Italy. It is shown that the institutionalization of accounting was completed to the XIV century, when it became a system of codified technical standards, scholar discipline and professional field. Examined the interrelations of this process with a business environment, political, social, economic and cultural factors of Italy by the XII-XVI centuries.

The article presents an empirical investigation of the impact of the Balassa-Samuelson effect on the real ruble appreciation in 1999-2007. We consider long-run, supply-side determinants of the real ruble exchange rate, such as changes in terms of trade and labor productivity. Using Russian and German data on price and productivity differentials between tradable and non-tradable sectors of the two economies, we estimate the significance of oil price shocks and the Balassa-Samuelson effect for the real ruble appreciation. Our study demonstrates that, on average, about 1/3 of the observed appreciation can be attributed to the Balassa-Samuelson effect. The cointegrating relationship between the productivity differential and the real exchange rate provides evidence of the healthy nature of the economic growth, which took place in Russia during the time period under investigation. These findings suggest that exchange rate adjustments should be used by the Central Bank of Russia mainly as a monetary policy instrument for fighting inflation rather than as a tool for competitive devaluations.

The paper analyzes the impact of changes in tax regimes on comparative export profitability of oil and main petroleum products. It considers the dynamics of export profitability of oil and petroleum products based on the annual data for 2001—2010, the quarterly data for 2011 and through the first quarter of 2012. The paper also examines how the forthcoming changes in tax legislation aimed at increasing the complexity of refining affect the profitability of oil sector exports. The analysis demonstrates that tax measures alone are not sufficient and might even be counterproductive.