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Uddevala Symposium 2015. Regional Development in an International Context. Regional, National, Cross Border and International Factors For Growth and Development. Revised papers presented at the 18th Uddevalla Symposium, 11-13 June, 2015, Sonderborg, Denmark
The aim of this paper is to conduct an empirical investigation and reveal what types of modernization strategies and characteristics of regional institutional environment are likely to be associated with different trajectories of firms’ performance in 2007-2012. Using hierarchical cluster analysis we revealed the typical trajectories of firms’ sales growth and found that the dynamic of sales for more than 90% of firms can be described by just two types of performance curve: (a) crisis decline-recovery and the stable growth and (b) crisis decline with weak recovery and stagnation. We test three hypotheses that (1) companies that invested a lot in modernization and restructuring of business before the crisis were more likely to successfully overcome the crisis shock, and (2) that location of firms in the regions with better institutional environment could also matter for the likelihood of successful recovery, and (3) firms with foreign ownership are more likely to overcome quickly and successfully crisis shocks and continue growth in post-crisis period. We found the firms that invested more prior to the crisis are more likely to have positive post-crisis dynamics of sales. Active restructuring accompanied by the rise of the number of employees in pre-crisis period was also a significant factor associated with propensity to be a member of successful cluster. We proved an evidence that firms in the regions with less level of corruption (both administrative and everyday) were more likely to successfully overcome the crisis shock. Contrary to the studies in other countries we found no evidence of significant positive role of foreign ownership.
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.