Working paper
Где бюджетнику жить хорошо? Анализ межсекторных различий в оплате труда в регионах России
Today, the internet has become a very fragmented research object that can be understood differently depending on contexts, research goals and methods. However, the internet [in this text, we write “internet” with a lower case “i”, following the process of decapitalisation of this term. The logic behind this process is that we understand internet as “computer network connecting a number of smaller networks” rather than as “the global network that evolved out of ARPANET, the early Pentagon network” (Herring S. Should you be capitalizing the word “internet”? Wired, 2015)] of a particular country is often treated by researchers as an umbrella term combining heterogeneous phenomena and practices. In this chapter we propose an alternative way of analysing the internet in Russia’s regions. Contrary to the concept of RuNet as common space, we explore diversity of what the internet is in different localities in Russia. The cases of five cities aim to illustrate the variety of histories and usage patterns of the internet in particular locations, such as in cities in Russia’s regions. Qualitative data consisting of interviews, observations, digital ethnography and archival documents have paved an additional (to more conventional quantitative data) way to explore the internet as a complex phenomenon rooted in previous development, local cultural and societal norms and political and economic situations. In particular, we stress the significance of the early internet, the diversity of basic and alternative platforms, the access and infrastructure divide as objects that are important to understand the development of the internet in a particular location.
There was analyzed the disjuncture in salary in the Republic of Kazakhstan taking into account trans-regional aspect. There were revealed regions with high and low level of salary. Economically successful export-oriented oil regions and the biggest cities, which are considered financial and business centers of the country, were included in the first group; the second group mainly includes regions, having agricultural orientation. There is defined the fact that the highest salary in the Republic exceeds the lowest one in 2.7, that is not ultimate in comparison with the same figure of the developed countries of the world. On the base of the data of household investigation, which was held by the Statistics Committee of the Republic of Kazakhstan with a help of modified function of earnings, there was defined the figure of the spread to earnings of residents of urban and country-side areas, which is 30%. Regions of Kazakhstan were classified according to poverty datum line. There were defined regions with low, average and high poverty level. In the given groups with a help of regression analysis there is defined the education productivity, which is higher in regions with lower poverty level.
This study provides an analysis of systemic opposition in Russia and its regions. The main aim of the chapter is to examine the opposition from a new perspective which sees it not as an alternative to, but as an integral part of the system and even as a support element of the regime. We call the opposition systemic not because it does not have any ideas about how to change the system. In terms of ideology almost any opposition can be pretty anti-systemic. In other words ideological division is not a valid reason to differentiate the systemic opposition from the non-systemic opposition. The systemic opposition in contrast to the non-systemic opposition, is accommodated within the existing system. The opposition itself is a very controversial term and classic “power – opposition” divide in the Russia’s regime is a misleading analytical framework. In fact all of the registered parties are part of one political system with their roles and functions giving this system extra stability. In my opinion they should be considered as non-dominant actors with a limited access to power. I suppose that the analysis of opposition in Russia is more relevant in terms of non-dominant systemic actors while the notion of opposition may be senseless. All major parties have their relations with the authorities and try to bargain for more favourable conditions and positions in power. Rational strategy prevails for all non-dominant actors who combine oppositional electoral behaviour with political opportunism and collaborationism. The political system as a whole remains stable and reproductive since it allows the conversion of public discontent into the consolidation of political actors.
In this paper the public-private wage gap is estimated by means both of the OLS and the quantile regression, which will provide a more complex picture of the distribution of the public-private sector wage gap. The author finds the existence of significant public-private wage gap (about 30%) considering both observable and unobservable characteristics of workers and jobs. Using the decomposition based on quantile regression helps to answer the question about the nature of the wage differences. The author comes to the conclusion that the main reason for the gap is the institutional mechanisms of public sector wages in Russia. The analysis is based on the data from Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS-HSE) 2000-2010.
The article considers socio-economic status of young people in the Russian labor market on the basis of analysis of the pooled cross-sectional data on real wages of young workers from 2000 to 2013, which is compared with wages of adult workers (of 30 years of age and older). This research is the first one to present analysis of economic status of youth on the basis of microdata array of the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS-HSE) comparable with the data from the Rosstat. The author reviews the gap between youth wages and those of adult workers, including by the level of education, employment sector, professional qualification and gender. Mincer wage equation is estimated separately for adult and young workers, by applying the method of least squares using Heckman’s procedure. The performed analysis showed that for the period under review the relative economic status of the youth has improved significantly: adult-young wage gap decreased by 13 percent, earnings of youth and adult workers equaled, youth wages grew faster than wages of workers of older cohorts. Nevertheless, there still is an adult-young wage gap for workers with higher education. Adult workers earn higher wages at the workplaces that require tenure (education, public sector), as well as at the high skilled jobs that require both tenure and higher education. On the contrary, at low-skilled jobs, where work experience is irrelevant, young workers earnings are higher.
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.