Book
Очерки модернизации российской промышленности: поведение фирм
The chapter offers three analytical cases put together as a result of non-formalized face-to-face interviews. it is shown how different manufacturing enterprises - mature chemical firm within the vertically intergated holding, new machine-building plant which serve the demand of resource sector and the relatively new company with the foreign owner - undertake technological innovations. The barriers, motivations and risks which influence the decisions to innovate are descrived. In the end, we show how innovations affect the competitiveness.
This chaper refers to the problem of low productivity and weak competitive stand of plants located in small and particulalry small specialized towns as compared to firms in bigger and more diversified locations. The findingds imply that the urban size and density of economic space, as well as its excessive sectoral specialization significantly reduce the firm competitiveness. Yet, the sectoral structure matters: textile and garmet plants in small towms are most vulnerable. Minimal diversification of economic structure and sufficient scale economy at the plant level allow to reduce the negative effects of the urban size.
The chapter privdes insight into the specificity of innovations at the mature manufacturing firms in Russia. The findings show that the group of genuine innovators, which target at least the national market and undertake R&D is rather small and unstable. About 10% of large enterprises completed the technological upgrade and get ready for the innovative mode of economic growth. We did not observe the technological convergence. Instead the group of leaders close to technological frontire becomes stronger, while the outsiders fell further behind. Firms which innovate regularly take decisions on product and process innovations simultaniously, and we did not find any evidence that these decisions compete. Innovations are more likely to increase competitiveness when they are integrated into the investment process.
The chapter focuses on the alternative measures of the relative competitiveness of Russian manufacturing enterprises and on assessing the changes in the distribution of manufacturing firms by those measures between 2005 and 2009.
This book directly confronts uncomfortable questions that many prefer to brush aside: if economists and other scholars, politicians, and business professionals understand the causes of economic crises, as they claim, then why do such damaging crises continue to occur? Can we trust business and intellectual elites who advocate the principles of Realpolitik and claim the "public good" as their priority, yet consistently favor maximization of profit over ethical issues?
Former deputy prime minister of Russia Grigory Yavlinsky, an internationally respected free-market economist, makes a powerful case that the often-cited causes of global economic instability—institutional failings, wrong decisions by regulators, insufficient or incorrect information, and the like—are only secondary to a far more significant underlying cause: the failure to understand that universal social norms are essential to thriving businesses and social and economic progress. Yavlinsky explores the widespread disregard for moral values in business decisions and calls for restoration of principled behavior in politics and economic practices. The unwelcome alternative, he warns, will be a twenty-first-century global economy in the grip of unending crises.
Grigory Yavlinsky is a Russian economist and founder and member of the Russian United Democratic Party (YABLOKO). As deputy prime minister of Russia in 1990, he wrote the first Russian economic program for transition to a free-market economy, 500 Days. He lives in Moscow.
Reviews
“Grigory Yavlinsky’s book is an important contribution to understanding the interplay between social norms and modern economy. The current global crisis makes his analysis especially relevant.”—George Soros
“Reading Grigory Yavlinsky's remarkable book, I was reminded of Adam Smith, also a moral philosopher concerned with the correlation between individual aspirations and the enlightened evolution of society. It is invaluable to have the perspective of an intellectual such as Yavlinsky writing in the shadow of swiftly moving events on the global stage. He explains how market mechanisms influence international developments ranging from instability in European markets to the recent ‘Great Recession’ in the United States.”—Vartan Gregorian, President, Carnegie Corporation of New York
“Yavlinsky provides a new and in-depth interpretation of the events leading to the current recession and broader interpretations of how to avoid future ones. Realeconomik has my enthusiastic endorsement.”—Michael D. Intriligator, University of California, Los Angeles
“With clarity and eloquence, Yavlinsky argues that the deepest cause of the global recession was the erosion of the world economy’s moral dimensions. As a professional economist who has long been a leader of the Russian opposition, he knows how to splice politics and economics. As a politician who has repeatedly declined high office on grounds of principle, he lends the book additional authority. Realeconomik is a work that will, I believe, help to spark a public debate on issues of profound importance for humankind.”—Peter Reddaway, George Washington University
The paper argues that when developing an explanatory model of the early-stage entrepreneurial activity level (measured by total index of early entrepreneurial activity - TEA) one should consider the ‘path dependency’ of the ‘institutional matrix’ of different societies. Otherwise one could wonder why some theoretical models of TEA determining factors, as provided by a lot of studies, are not statistically significant for younger market systems and entrepreneurship in transitional economies. However, comparing Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) data with the scope of official statistics provides a deeper insight into adults’ intrinsic incentives to become entrepreneurial. A statistical analysis of national TEA levels does not support the thesis that TEA levels, and structure, change under economic slowdown. Therefore, it seems logical to suggest that to interpret the TEA level it is important to examine some fundamental specific of different types of national markets rather than just the actual economic situation itself. When testing this hypothesis, the authors compared the characteristics of GEM countries with stable, high or low TEA levels. A Fisher’s linear discriminant analysis (FLDA) is used to examine whether different groups of countries can be distinguished by linear combinations of predictor variables and to determine which variables are responsible for this separation. The FLDA model explains the parabolic form of the relation between the level of economic development and TEA. A database of independent variables includes some different quantitative, ordinal and nominal variables determining the context of the national capital accumulation history. Using FLDA, we argue, one might foresee future tendencies of TEA - not only for GEM participating countries.
In article the concept of a special economic zone (OEZ), key principles of its organization, specifics of the OEZ organization for tourism development are considered, the analysis of world experience of creation and functioning of tourist and recreational OEZ in Panama, China and on Philippines is given.