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On the basis of relevant world literature analyzed, the author characterizes ideological attitudes of researchers of informal economy (within which two blocks are distinguished: shadow economy and domestic one). As is demonstrated in the article, orthodox liberals regard the "informals" as agents of the "invisible hand" of the market; to the mind of socially oriented liberals, the "informals" are indicators of the balance of economic and social demands; conservatives qualify the "shadowers" as breakers of social conventions; finally, in the eyes of socialist theoreticians, the said elements are enemies of society regulation on planned lines.
L’objectif de ce chapitre est d’expliquer le phénomène du piratage audiovisuel en Russie. Nous essayerons d’identifier les logiques qui le régissent dans le contexte de l’économie informelle et ses fonctions culturelles. Pendant les années 1990, les spécificités de la société russe – et, par conséquence, également, celles de son système médiatique – étaient expliquées par son caractère « en transition ». Ce genre d’approche sous-entendait que le processus s’achèverait par la mise en place de l’économie marchande, de la société civile et de la démocratie. Une bonne partie des chercheurs en communication, y compris certains chercheurs russes, ont ainsi cru pouvoir déceler l’installation, en Russie, d’un véritable marché des médias, connecté au marché global. Selon la même logique, les chercheurs en économie appréhen-daient le secteur informel voire semi-légal, y compris le piratage, comme un phéno-mène anormal ayant pour vocation de disparaître avec le développement de l’économie marchande. Dans ce sens, le piratage a souvent été représenté de façon univoque comme un moyen de rendre accessibles les produits culturels à une population n’ayant pas les moyens de les acquérir autrement. Nous allons ici essayer de démon-trer la nature mystificatrice d’une telle représentation et mettre en lumière les autres facteurs, en particulier culturels, qui expliquent le phénomène, ainsi que les rapports de force qui existent en son sein et les mutations qu’il connaît aujourd’hui.
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.
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.