The paper discusses how the russian labor market has been evolving over two decades of the transition. it starts with tracing key labor market indicators such as employment, unemployment, labor force participation, working hours, and real wages. Their dynamics indicate that the labor market tends to operate in a non-conventional fashion and far from the patterns expected initially. The authors argue that the current russian labor market represents a peculiar model that is different from what is observed in the rest of europe outside of the cis. having established this, they look at the institutional foundations that make this unconventional performance possible and proceed with discussing political economy and welfare implications. The findings are compared with the experience of other post-socialist countries.

The paper analyses gender wage gap in Russia using micro-data of the NOBUS household survey carried out by the Rosstat in 2003. The Oaxaca — Blinder decomposition of differences in average monthly wages between men and women generally confirms previous findings obtained using the RLMS data. Firstly, the asymmetric gender employment structure is the main contributor to the male-female wage gap. Secondly, both the level and the returns to accumulated human capital for women are on average higher than for men, narrowing the wage gap. Thirdly, about a half of the observed differential cannot be explained using standard decomposition framework. The unexplained gender wage differential is a proxy for an estimate of the level of discrimination and constitutes about 15—18% of the average wage of men. The implemented analysis of distribution of the unexplained gender wage gap across subgroups of workers indicates that the certain part of this gap can be explained indeed by the discrimination of women. The paper also presents an indirect evidence of “the glass ceiling” for Russian women.

The paper discusses one the most peculiar form of non-standard employment in the Russian labor market — engagement in personal subsidiary agriculture. Using micro-data from the Russian labor force surveys author provides quantitative estimates of employment and hours worked in this sector. According to his findings including subsistence farmers raises employment-population ratio in Russia by 10 percentage points and it turns out one the highest in the world. Special attention is paid to description of social and demographic characteristics of persons involved in domestic agriculture. The dynamics of agricultural household production over the post-reform period is analyzed and its contribution to household consumption is estimated. The main conclusion is that for such highly industrialized and urbanized country as Russia the situation when at the peak of agricultural season about half of her adult population works on personal subsidiary plots of lands is fairly surprising and testifies to a huge waste of available labor resources.

The paper comments on new estimates of EPL stringency for Russia which implies that labor regulation in Russia is de jure very flexible. Alternative estimates presented in the paper suggest that by stringency of EPL Russia exceeds even those OECD countries whose labor markets are considered overtly overregulated.

The paper examines a specific model of wagesetting evolved in Russia under transition. Using new survey data author reveals paradoxical characteristics of wage!setting mechanisms at Russian industrial enterprises: very high union and collective agreement coverage; nearly unilateral control of managers over wage determination; close correlation between earnings and enterprises' performance; voluntary utilization of wage standards established by state. Special section explores effects of fulfilling a new provision stipulated for by recently adopted Labor Code to raise minimum wage to subsistence minimum level. Author concludes that wage!setting in the Russian labor market is at odds with a textbook competitive model and poorly fits into many other sophisticated theoretical schemes (such as labor!managed firms, bargaining models etc.).

In this paper I study and compare the earnings distributions for formal and informal workers using the data from the RLMS HSE survey for 2000–2010. I fi nd that during the whole period earnings inequality was signifi cantly higher in the informal sector than in the formal sector. Informality has statistically signifi cant impact on the distribution of earnings, but its contribution is much smaller than the effects of other variable such as gender, education, region, and settlement type. Earnings inequality dramatically decreased in both sectors over the 2000–2010 period. In the formal sector the changes in the earning distribution were mainly generated by the changes in the distribution of hourly earnings. In the informal sector the reduction of inequality went through two channels: differences in both hourly rates and hours of work were declining. This refl ects several underlying forces: a declining share of workers without permanent job and low barriers between the sectors (as inequality decreased by similar amount in both sectors). In fact, one third of the overall decline in the variance of logs over the 2000–2010 period is due to workers without permanent employment.

The paper analyses nonstandard types and measures of employment and unemployment in Russia. Under transition a variety of groups with borderline status emerged and proliferated in the Russian labor market: temporary workers, part-timers, underemployed workers, subsistence farmers, discouraged workers etc. Using micro-data from the Russian labor force surveys author provides quantitative estimates of these intermediate groups, examines their composition and dynamics. Since many observers suggested that official employment-population ratios and unemployment rates published by the Russian statistical authorities might underestimate actual slack in the Russian labor market a series of alternative measures of employment and unemployment adjusted for various non-standard patterns of labor relations are calculated. Results obtained show that discrepancies between standard and alternative indicators are mostly minimal and that their evolution over 90-s was quite similar. This means that relatively small job losses and modest open unemployment in the Russian economy under transition were not merely statistical artifacts but reflected actual flexibility and adaptability characteristic for the Russian model of the labor market.

The paper provides a critique of a new attack against the Coase theorem opened by A. Oleynik. Under close examination his attempts to repudiate the Coase theorem turn out to be theoretically invalid. Special discussion is devoted to the normative ideas of R. H. Coase.

The paper provides new survey evidence on effects of the firm’s performance and ownership profile on management turnover and succession patterns in Russian industrial firms. On the basis of the Russian Economic Barometer panel data authors analyze changes in average tenure of top managers in the REB respondent enterprises over 90's, estimate probabilities of their replacement and assess shares of incumbents and non'incumbents among CEOs and Chairmen of the Board of Directors. The major econometric findings are that managers’ entrenchment is positively related to insider ownership and negatively to outsider ownership. Besides, a probability to be replaced is higher for poorly performed than for well performed top executives. As for succession patterns, «outside» appointments seem to be more likely in distressed companies and in companies dominated by outsiders while «inside» appointments seem to be more likely in well performed companies and in companies dominated by insiders. The main conclusion following from the study is that in spite of numerous built'in defects, the Russian system of corporate governance is doing what it has to do, helping to select the more competent managers and to enhance effectiveness of their work.

The paper examines relationship between human capital and the labor market outcomes in Russia. Main findings are that high educational attainment considerably strengthen workers’ competitive positions. More educated groups have much higher labor force participation rates, employment rates and earnings but lower unemployment rates. In Russia «premium» in earnings of college graduates over earnings of high school graduates approaches to 60—70 percent e.g. is of same order as in mature market economies. This implies that «good» formal education is valued in the Russian labor marker no less that in the labor markets of most other countries. However decreasing returns to skills for younger cohorts of Russian workers suggest that competitive advantages provided by high educational attainment might not be sustainable.

The paper provides a critical appraisal of the normative program of behavioral economics known as "new paternalism".

The Labour Market Reform in Germany: a Special Case or an Example to Follow In this article we study the institutional reform of the German labour market during the period 2003-2005, the so-called Hartz reforms. The aim of this paper is threefold. First, we describe the economic and institutional context of the German labour market before the Hartz reforms in light of general trends in market economies. The falling competitiveness of the German economy, the need to increase the flexibility and dynamics of the labor market have made the ruling elite to proceed with institutional transformations. Second, we analyze the theoretical concepts that became the basis for the labour market reform and examine the changes in the main labour market institutions. Finally, we evaluate the outcomes of the institutional reforms for economic activity, employment, unemployment and labour costs. Of major interest is the question about the impact of the Hartz reforms on internal flexibility. In this work we rely on the institutional analysis. Results of the study contribute to the understanding of the mechanism of labour market transformations. At the same time its main conclusions can be used for improving the economic and social policy in the Russian Federation. We came to the following conclusions. We have found the positive impact of the changes in labour market institutions on labour market outcomes: especially on the dynamics of economic activity and employment. The Hartz reforms fundamentally modified the functioning of the German labor market and increased both flexibility and job creation capacities. However, the pattern of German de-regulatory reforms accesses mostly the margins of the labour market, i.e. ‘outsiders’, that contribute to a growing dualisation of the employment system. This dualisation trend was reinforced by dynamics in industrial relations and company employment practices where we can observe growing reliance on mechanisms of internal flexibility for the skilled core work force and increasing use of non-standard types of employment in less specifically skilled occupations.

The paper attempts to estimate expropriation risks for shareholders in the Russian economy. On the basis of the survey of nearly 1000 manufacturing firms which was conducted in 2009 a series of special «ownership insecurity indices» is constructed and their variation by types of risks and firms is analyzed. Using various econometric techniques the study examines major determinants of ownership insecurity and evaluates its impact on firms investment and innovative activity. The analysis shows that the Russian economy continues to operate on a shaky basis of attenuated and insecure property rights and that under such condition incentives for economic agents to invest in any long-term projects turn out to be inevitably weak.

The paper examines dynamics in demand and supply of skilled labor in the russian economy over the transition period of 1990–2000-s. It shows that despite a huge inflow of workers with tertiary education demand for such workers grew in the russian labor market even faster. This explains why unemployment for workers with high educational attainment remained low; why returns to education continued to be high; why a proportion of college graduates who occupied low-skilled jobs decreased rather than increased. However in the next decades a relationship between demand and supply might radically change so that the russian economy could face with massive oversupply of highly educated workforce.

The paper examines industrial, occupational and educational characteristics of the Russian employment. Author indicates that although in the post-reform period there were deep and fast changes in the composition of the Russian workforce in some crucial respects it continues to differ substantially from that in many other mature and transition market economies. The paper provides a series of quantitative estimates of impact that shifts in industrial and occupational structure exerted on shifts in educational structure of employment. Its main findings suggest that since the mid of 90-s evolution of the educational system in Russia has become mostly autonomous and lost any systematic relationship with economic restructuring, with changes in distribution of workers by industries and occupations.