Book chapter
Институциональные факторы размещения прямых иностранных инвестиций в предприятия российской пищевой промышленности
Does the institutional environment in Russian regions significantly stimulate the inflow of foreign direct investment in Russian food industry enterprises or is the investor interested only in the size of a market? The sample of about 5000 food industry companies of different subindustries from different Russian regions is analyzed to give the answer to this question. The main idea of this investigation is to determine the institutional factors which effect the distribution of the FDI and to test whether the transport infrastructure in the region and in the neighboring ones plays an important role. The estimation of a multilevel binary model with spatial effects of analyzed factors gives the idea for the possible solution on the problem discovered above.
In book
Drawing on the neo-institutional approach in organizational theory and global strategy, we advance a theory on the impact that differences in cultural egalitarianism have on multinational firms’ decision of where to engage in foreign direct investment (FDI) across the globe. Egalitarianism expresses a society’s cultural orientation with respect to intolerance for abuses of market and political power; it shapes the ways in which firms holding power interact with different stakeholders. After presenting a series of case illustrations, we find a strong negative impact of egalitarianism distance on FDI flows in a broad sample of nations and for different entry modes. Our results are robust to a broad set of competing accounts, including effects from other cultural dimensions, major features of the legal and regulatory regimes, other features of the institutional system, and economic development. These results hold while controlling for origin and host country factors through a fixed-effects specification as well as by using instruments for egalitarianism. We also find that other cultural influences are important as well. Differences in cultural harmony are actually positively associated with increased FDI flows, likely because multinational firms seek countries with lower societal support for entrepreneurship. FDI further tends to flow from high embeddedness to low embeddedness countries, and we link this in part to international regulatory arbitrage on environmental protection regimes.
The paper explores the evolution of trade and economic relations between Russia and Myanmar in 1948-2018. The author compares the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of Myanmar cooperation with China, India and Russia, highlighting their features and prospects. Summarizing the results, the author states that, despite the currently modest volumes of trade and investment, the potential for developing foreign economic relations between Russia and Myanmar is very high. However, Myanmar is an important link in the regional strategies of China and India, which also belong to the BRICS and the SCO. Therefore, it is impossible for Russia to build its political and economic ties with Myanmar without taking these aspects of regional relations into account.
In this paper we study convergence among Russian regions. We find that while there was no convergence in 1990s, the situation changed dramatically in 2000s. While interregional GDP per capita gaps still persist, the differentials in incomes and wages decreased substantially. We show that fiscal redistribution did not play a major role in convergence. We therefore try to understand the phenomenon of recent convergence using panel data on the interregional reallocation of capital and labor. We find that capital market in Russian regions is integrated in a sense that local investment does not depend on local savings. We also show that economic growth and financial development has substantially decreased the barriers to labor mobility. We find that in 1990s many poor Russian regions were in a poverty trap: potential workers wanted to leave those regions but could not afford to finance the move. In 2000s (especially in late 2000s), these barriers were no longer binding. Overall economic development allowed even poorest Russian regions to grow out of the poverty traps. This resulted in convergence in Russian labor market; the interregional gaps in incomes, wages and unemployment rates are now below those in Europe. The results imply that economic growth and development of financial and real estate markets eventually result in interregional convergence.
What is governmental effectiveness on the regional level? How can the study of regional effectiveness help us understand the performance of the political, social and economic systems of the state as a whole? These questions are very important from both the theoretical and applied perspectives, and the Russian Federation, with its huge and diverse territory, provides extremely rich material to answer them. Serious institutional reforms in the public sector have been implemented in recent years, and the results vary substantially from one region to another. So, in Russia, we can study how general attempts to make government more effective - guided by federal policies - produce particular regional effects, and, conversely, how regions implement federal policy differently. Both views tell us something important about overall governmental quality.
Governmental effectiveness, though in a broad sense one of the oldest issues in political science and philosophy, is currently enjoying a renaissance. The quantity of recent publications and even a special academic structure - The Quality of Government Institute in Sweden – illustrate the current interest. However, researching governmental effectiveness poses serious difficulties, on both the conceptual and instrumental levels. Despite (perhaps even because of) the variety of available theoretical frameworks, the essential core notions of governmental effectiveness and good governance remain murky. Furthermore, scholars disagree about what effectiveness and efficiency mean in a general sense. These issues obviously make it difficult to construct adequate measurement instruments.
The paper seeks to achieve three goals: 1) to review existing approaches and highlight their weak points; 2) to propose a theoretical framework for analyzing governmental effectiveness using appropriate estimation tools; and 3) to present empirical results based on data on public health care from Russia’s regions. Three patterns that ought to correlate - regional efficiency, how reform has been implemented and public opinion – are, instead, inconsistent with each other. Russia’s health-care sector today faces considerable problems with basic, systemic effectiveness.
Subnational political units are growing in influence in national and international
affairs, drawing increasing scholarly attention to politics beyond national capitals.
In this book, leading Russian and Western political scientists contribute to
debates in comparative politics by examining Russia’s subnational politics.
Beginning with a chapter that reviews major debates in theory and method,
this book continues to examine Russia’s 83 regions, exploring a wide range of
topics including the nature and stability of authoritarian regimes, federal politics,
political parties, ethnic conflict, governance and inequality in a comparative perspective.
Providing both qualitative and quantitative data from 20 years of original
research, the book draws on elite interaction, public opinion and the role of
institutions regionally in the post-Soviet
years. The regions vary on a number of
theoretically interesting dimensions while their federal membership provides
control for other dimensions that are challenging for globally comparative
studies. The authors demonstrate the utility of subnational analyses and show
how regional questions can help answer a variety of political questions, providing
evidence from Russia that can be used by specialists on other large countries
or world regions in cross-national
scholarship.
Situated within broader theoretical and methodological political science
debates, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Russian politics,
comparative politics, regionalism and subnational politics
In the publication we describe Russian regional markets of higher education. We consider the following indicators of the markets: size in terms of students per 10 000 of population; its institutional structure – number of public and private institutions, universities and their local branches; program diversity; level and dynamics of tuition fees during recent years; and levels of market concentration in higher education. For each key indicator we present geographical maps that characterize differentiation of the regional markets. We also analyze indicators of regional markets of higher education in conjunction with clusters of Russian regions outlined by Independent Institute on Social Policy (2006) on the basis of socio-economic indicators and derive meaningful conclusions on differentiation of key indicators of higher education markets. We show that in Russia the level of regional development corresponds to the level of concentration and diversification at regional higher education markets.
This book studies the role of civil society organisations in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Russia. The book investigates civil society organizations’ contribution to social change and civil society development in post-Soviet Russia, and thus situates a specific type of civil society actors into a broader socio-political context and questions their ability to represent civic interests, particularly in the field of social policy-making and health.
On the basis of in-depth case studies of four Russian regions, Kirov and Voronezh oblasts and Krasnoyarsk and Perm' krais, the trade-offs among social and economic policy at the regional level in Russia are examined. All four regional governments seek to develop entrepreneurship while preserving social welfare obligations and improving compensation in the public sector. Richer regions have a greater ability to reconcile social commitments with the promotion of business. Regions differ in their development strategies, some placing greater emphasis on indigenous business development and others seeking to attract federal or foreign investment. Governors have considerable discretion in choosing their strategy so long as they meet basic performance demands set by the federal government such as ensuring good results for the United Russia party. In all four regions, governments consult actively with local business associations whereas organized labor is weak. However, the absence of effective institutions to enforce commitments undertaken by government and its social partners undermines regional capacity to use social policy as a basis for long-term economic development.
In Russia, the question of development of transport infrastructure is the hot is-sue. It is not only a necessary requirement for innovation program of economic growth, created by the president, but also an improving the quality of life and competitiveness of national economy factor. Till now, no attempts were made to systemize and provide a clear and just classification of airports` infrastructure development. This study is to fulfill this gap. Such a classification of the world can be of great practical importance for all the evolving airports, wishing to reach the world level of innovations. The study attempted to identify the transitional moments in the development of airports from a simple airfield to a modern hub. It is anticipated that the results of this study will be applicable to most companies conscious of the problem; and therefore the recommendations of the study will be generic for the private investors, the government and all the stakeholders.