Book
Капитализм и свобода
In the presented article, the author investigates the content of the legal and economic relations, opposing them to each other. Earlier, the economic and legal theories identified these phenomena, not allowing to find their own essence. The author suggests to divide all public relations into two main groups: natural and artificial where to the last belongs the legislation while the majority of the economic relations have natural character. The conclusions made by the author prove the most important rule of economic efficiency – the need of freedom for businessmen from external, first of all, public influence. The author insists on absolute nature of such freedom as only under this condition, the maximum of efficiency is reached. Legal relations are required to approach, if possible, to the natural state, having made them the most free that in the legal sphere means the development of private and reduction of public law.
This article reviews the functions of transaction avoidance in German insolvency law. First it considers the effectiveness of transaction avoidance law from the point of economics. The author evaluates what incentives are created by the actual transaction avoidance provisions and how do they affect the moment the insolvency petition is filed and the possibility of rescuing the company. Separately the author gives the evaluation of strategies of the secured creditors, whose interests are not the same with the general body of creditors. The second part analyzes the prerequisites which are mandatory for the successful avoidance of the transaction.
According to interdisciplinary theory of architecture and sociology by A. Amin and N. Thrift, presented in their book Cities. Reimagining the Urban, the light sociality is the main way of individuals interaction in city space. In this context, consumption appears to be one of the basic forms of individuals self-expression on one hand, and on the other hand - one of the basic forms of urban communication. We deal with consumption in its general meaning - as a complex of all individuals consumption-related practices that are transparent in space of light sociality. Consumption practices become agents of light sociality, producing ambivalent encounters that emotionally affect individuals realizing those practices, and those who observe them. In this way consumption takes part in governmentality of the city spaces.
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 results of cross-cultural research of implicit theories of innovativeness among students and teachers, representatives of three ethnocultural groups: Russians, the people of the North Caucasus (Chechens and Ingushs) and Tuvinians (N=804) are presented. Intergroup differences in implicit theories of innovativeness are revealed: the ‘individual’ theories of innovativeness prevail among Russians and among the students, the ‘social’ theories of innovativeness are more expressed among respondents from the North Caucasus, Tuva and among the teachers. Using the structural equations modeling the universal model of values impact on implicit theories of innovativeness and attitudes towards innovations is constructed. Values of the Openness to changes and individual theories of innovativeness promote the positive relation to innovations. Results of research have shown that implicit theories of innovativeness differ in different cultures, and values make different impact on the attitudes towards innovations and innovative experience in different cultures.