Increasing cooperation through greater interdependency of the organizational networks structures is a topical issue for a diverse range of industries, including the energy sector However, despite the advantages of such form of activity, Russian organizations do not tend to cooperate. An extensive analysis of the techno-economic network of the Russian power sector innovation ecosystem made it possible to identify hub-organizations which could be regarded as the catalysts for partnership development. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to elaborate the mechanisms of target network creation behind hubs’ involvement in the network expansion. Thus, it could provide a solid foundation not only for an increased number of partnerships but could also serve the purpose of embedding companies in the strategic activity ultimately enabling them to achieve competitive parity with the rest of the world.

Book of Proceedings

The regulatory policy report is the latest in a series written in cooperation with the Higher School of Economics and expert and business communities during the work on a comprehensive strategy to modernize the public administration system in Russia. For CSR, changing the regulatory policy along with introducing modern managerial approaches to public administration, personnel policy, and large-scale digital transformation, is a priority for successful structural reforms.

The ideas and suggestions on the regulatory policy presented by CSR were of great interest to the Russian business community. CSR received dozens of conceptual proposals from experts, businessmen, and public officials from all over Russia. We worked on promising regulatory policy tools and a comprehensive strategy for two years and a major part of our deliverables can be found in Chapter 3 of this report. Many of these proposals were also included in the Development Strategy for 2018–2024 presented by CSR at the request of the Russian President.

This book provides a critical account of the third sector and its future in Europe. It offers an original conceptualization of the third sector in its European manifestations alongside an overview of its major contours, including its structure, sources of support, and recent trends. It also assesses the impact of this sector in Europe which considers its contributions to European economic development, citizen well-being and human development.

The Third Sector As A Renewable Resource for Europe presents the findings of the Third Sector Impact (TSI) project funded by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Program (FP7). It recognises that in a time of social and economic distress, as well as enormous pressures on governmental budgets, the third sector and volunteering represent a unique ‘renewable resource’ for social and economic problem-solving and civic engagement in Europe.

The past few decades have witnessed the development of an increasingly globalised and multipolar world order, in which the demand for multilateralism becomes ever more pronounced. The BRICS group established in 2009, has evolved into a plurilateral summit institution recognized both by sceptics and proponents as a major participant in the international system.

Addressing the BRICS’s role in global governance, this book critically examines the club’s birth and evolution, mechanisms of inter-BRICS cooperation, its agenda priorities, BRICS countries’ interests, decisions made by members, their collective and individual compliance with the agreed commitments, and the patterns of BRICS engagement with other international institutions. This volume advances the current state of knowledge on global governance architecture, the BRICS role in this system, and the benefits it has provided and can provide for world order.

This book will interest scholars and graduate students who are researching the rise and role of emerging powers, global governance, China and India’s approach to global order and relationship with the United States, Great Power politics, democratization as a foreign policy strategy, realist theory-building and hegemonic transitions, and the (crisis of) liberal world order.

This volume offers profound analyses of the main theoretical and practical aspects of the concept of sustainable development: namely, current environmental problems; the building of green economies; climate policies; specifics of international cooperation in the sphere of sustainable development; specific features of business and government involvement in implementing sustainable development; the role of civil society; its social and gender aspects; and specific characteristics of national models of sustainable development. The focus on the international aspects of the implementation of sustainable development ideas makes the insights offered here fresh and unique.

Human capital is produced primarily by the education system. Today it is the most important factor in the development of economy and society. By investing in human capital, economic growth rates above the average world-level can be achieved, which is necessary in order to strengthen Russia’s positions in the context of increasing global competition. The report proposes 12 projects, aiming not only for the development of education, but for making a decisive contribution to the “breakthrough” of the country in economic, social and technological development by activating the creative potential of the Russian population as a whole and self-realization of each individual. The ultimate result of all the proposed 12 solutions will be a steady increase in the quality of life of the Russian people.

The research on technical regulations and standards highlights that the EAEU is already implementing many EU standards as the basis for reforming and modernizing its former GOST regulations and standards. In addition the EAEU is adopting many standards of the international standards organizations (ISO, IEC, ITU), which work very closely in partnership with the European standards organizations (CEN, CENELEC, ETSI), such that international and European standards are to a large degree identical. This means that the legal and technical infrastructure for non-tariff barriers of the two parties is already converging. This makes non-tariff barriers a potentially fertile field for cooperation between the EU and EAEU, which in turn could mean easier access to markets and increased mutual trade. In this case, the potential format and extent of cooperation could extend to include a Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA) on Conformity Assessment, through to the most ambitious formula (in EU practice) of the Agreement on Conformity Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial Products (ACAA). Such arrangements would in principle ideally form part of a free trade agreement. Such scenarios can be technically specified, but of course they would have to rely on demanding political conditions which today are not satisfied.  

The objectives of the study were (a) to identify the reasons and concerns of those public administrators and marketing scholars who do not accept the usefulness of marketing in the public sector; (b) to deconstruct, comprehend, interpret, and critically appraise the current conceptualization of public sector marketing from the viewpoint of negativists identified in step (a); and (c) to reconstruct, redefine, reinterpret, and reoperationalize the current controversial conceptualization of public sector marketing into a new conceptualization in the context of park and recreation services. The critical theory approach to the study primary used non-empirical procedures data collection and analytic procedures which included investigative research, negative case analysis, and theoretical triangulation. These procedures were supplemented with empirical data collected from in-depth interviews with five scholars and with three parks and recreation managers. Results of the non-empirical procedures revealed the biased selective nature of the current conceptualization of public park and recreation marketing and the existence of alternative conceptualizations which have been ignored. The existing and alternative models were discussed with scholars and park and recreation managers. Support was found for the alternative models. From these data an alternative conceptualization of public park and recreation marketing was developed and named the concept of administered marketing. Implications for park and recreation managers are discussed. Directions for future research into the administratively managed park and recreation marketing concept are suggested. 

The student's book is based on the CLIL approach to teaching and teaches case study solving skills via English language learning. Such an approach creates positive environment for students to master new knowledges and skills. 

In the last decade, advanced economies, including the euro area, experienced deflationary pressures caused by the global financial crisis of 2007‒2009 and the anti--crisis policies that followed—in particular, the new financial regulations (which led to a deep decline in the money multiplier). However, there are numerous signs in both the real and financial spheres that these pressures are disappearing. The largest advanced economies are growing up to their potential, unemployment is systematically decreasing, the financial sector is more eager to lend, and its clients—to borrow. Rapidly growing asset prices signal the possibility of similar developments in other segments of the economy. In this new macroeconomic environment, central banks should cease unconventional monetary policies and prepare themselves to head off potential inflationary pressures.

In order to understand a country as large and diverse as Russia, it is extremely important to consider spatial patterns of economic development. As Russia looks for new drivers of economic growth, it is important to understand the structural conditions that have defined economic development in Russia’s regions. This report uses the Economic Potential Index (EPI) methodology to identify the conditions that drive regional development. Economic potential is the level of productivity that is possible for a region to achieve given its structural endowments, which are characteristics that are hard to alter in the short run. The methodology used in this report combines quantitative analysis of drivers of productivity across regions with in-depth case studies that focus on the role of regional governments and institutions in converting endowments into economic outcomes. This methodology generates insights that are relevant for both national and regional governments. The first chapter of this report provides an overview of regional development in Russia over the last 25 years and identifies “Russia-specific” national structural conditions that may affect regional development. The second chapter discusses the results of an assessment of economic potential at the regional level and the factors that shape it in Russia. The third chapter focuses on the role of national and regional governance, policy, and institutions in promoting economic development of the regions. The final chapter proposes policy priorities for both regional and national authorities.

The 11th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance (ICEGOV2018) took place in Galway, Republic of Ireland, between 4 and 6 April 2018. The conference was held under the high patronage of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER), Government of Ireland. The Insight Centre for Data Analytics, part of the National University of Ireland Galway, co-organised ICEGOV2018 with the United Nations University Operating Unit on Policy-Driven Electronic Governance (UNU-EGOV), which is also the conference series organiser1. The conference organisation was also supported by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI).

The materials of The International Scientific – Practical Conference is presented below.

The Conference reflects the modern state of innovation in education, science, industry and social-economic sphere, from the standpoint of introducing new information technologies.

It is interesting for a wide range of researchers, teachers, graduate students and professionals in the field of innovation and information technologies.

The Report predicts that the coming five years will witness the five countries keep improving in national innovative competitiveness, with China and Russia maintaining their strong growth momentum, India growing at a moderate rate, and Brazil and South Africa gradually picking up speed and climbing out of the trough. It estimates that the five countries’ national innovative competitiveness will be keeping steady growth by 2030. 

 

The General Reports part presents a comprehensive analysis of the current status and achievements of STI cooperation between China and other BRICS countries and proposes priority areas of BRICS STI cooperation to provide valuable decision inputs for the BRICS countries to accelerate the improvement of their national innovative competitiveness. The Country Reports part respectively analyzes and makes predictions on the national innovative competitiveness of the BRICS countries based on a survey of their STI development and STI cooperation within the BRICS framework. The Thematic Reports part focuses on four thematic areas closely related to STI, i.e. digital economy, financial inclusion, energy, and agriculture, and offers detailed analysis of the STI development and potential of the countries in relevant areas, providing additional inputs for a further understanding of the national innovative competitiveness of the BRICS countries.

The book considers how to make the methodology of business ethics more scientific, especially its normative branch. Storchevoy explores the attempts of economic theory to contribute to the scientific normative analysis of economic behavior, particularly the welfare economics of 1910-1950 and methodological discussions of economics and ethics from 1980-2015. He then examines the development of the methodological structure of business ethics in general since the 1980s and the scientific validity of normative business ethics, including stakeholder theory, the separation thesis, integral social contract theory, corporate social responsibility, virtue ethics and other frameworks. He concludes by suggesting an additional step to make business ethics a more systematic discipline by developing a typology of moral issues and dilemmas. Business Ethics as a Science will be a thought-provoking resource for students and practitioners of business ethics and economists alike.

A complex analysis of the social and economic consequences of China, Ukraine, and Russia’s accession to the WTO was used to identify recommendations for the most successful adaptation of Russia to WTO standards. Russia tries to adapt to the WTO standards. The study focuses on the Chinese experience. China’s membership in the WTO is extremely useful for Russia from due to China’s positive influence on the development of its economy , as there has been expansion in the industrial and production sectors of its economy and promotion of goods in world markets, as well as an opportunity to use the WTO’s legal instruments for national domestic market protection.

China’s positive experience as a WTO member somehow contrasts with the described experience of Ukraine. An assessment of Ukraine’s versatile policy and its association with the EU allowed concluded that it is impossible for Ukraine to follow two ways at once: that of Eurasian integration and that of European integration.

Recently, the aggravated trade, economic and political confrontations between Russia and its American and European partners spurred radical changes in Russia’s economic strategy. Areas of such transformations can be determined by understanding both the positive and negative experiences of Russia’s old trade partners, namely China and Ukraine as they joined the world economic environment.

The imposition of sanctions by foreign countries against Russia since 2014 and their prolongation for the following several years resulted in significant changes in Russian economics. In the first instance, economic sanctions were aimed towards the weakening of companies by banning exports and imports of certain goods, closeout or suspension of joint venture projects, as well as limiting the provision of financing. However, one can postulate that these sanctions influenced the companies to different extents. This research offers an analysis of the changes in share prices of Russian public companies of the MICEX index in response to sanctions against Russia in 2014–2016. The research methodology is based on the event study approach, which allows estimation of a short-term response of the shares’ prices to information release. The results of this paper confirm that imposition and prolongation of sanctions resulted in a significant fall in share prices. With an average daily return on shares of the Russian stock market companies of 0.1%, a fall in return of 0.17% points per day as a result of the imposition of sanctions by the USA is economically significant. Apart from that, the sanctions influenced financially dependent companies to a greater extent. Contrary to theoretical assumptions of a greater influence of sanctions imposed by the countries with which a more close economic cooperation had been established, it transpired that the imposition of sanctions by the USA resulted in the greatest fall in prices for shares. Also, an important result indicated in this paper is the fact that imposition of targeted sanctions against certain companies has not entailed a greater impact of the sanctions on such companies. This is indicative of the ineffectiveness of targeted sanctions imposed on Russia. The influence of the government share in ownership of companies and the differences of response of the shares’ prices depending on the company industry sector have not been confirmed.

The carried out studies show that from the point of view of the issue of efficiency increase of logistical systems, there are several key aspects. Firstly, choice of methods for managing the triad of logistics functions ‘inventory management - warehousing – transportation’, where the inventory management issues are considered as the most relevant ones. Secondly, there is recognized the need to move the studies of multi-level systems within the framework of the concept of supply chain management. Nowadays, supply chains, which are represented by the distribution system, are widespread in practice. The most common of them are two-level ones with a central supplier at the second level and a certain number of companies at the first level; and multi-level systems of the distribution configuration network in which multi-nomenclature stocks are located. The article is devoted to the design and enhancement of analytical platform for inventory management in such distribution systems.

The purpose of this study is to identify factors that affect the level of employment in Russian regions. However, Russia is not a homogeneous country, and this effect may not be the same for all regions. That is why we split the regions of Russia into three groups, depending on the state of the labor market in this and neighboring regions. The HH (high-high) group comprises regions with a favorable situation in their labor markets, and which are also surrounded mostly by prosperous regions. Two groups of regions with a less favorable situation are located respectively in the south of Russia (LL1, low-low group 1) and southern Siberia and Zabaikalye (LL2, low-low group 2). We considered the twelve-year period from 2005 to 2016. As explanatory variables, we used variables for the attractiveness of the region, demographic characteristics of the region, and the degree of diversity of employees by economic activities. We tested hypotheses about differences in 1) the spatial effects and 2) the impact of the various explanatory variables for these groups of variables. To test our main hypotheses, we used spatial regression dynamic models estimated with the help of the generalized method of moments. Both main hypotheses received empirical confirmation. Spatial effects were different. The regions of the LL2 group are not affected by the situation in other local markets; regions of LL1 and HH groups are affected by the rest of Russia’s regions, and the extent of this influence decreases with the increase in geographical distance between regions. Moreover, the regions of the LL1 group compete with neighboring regions: if the situation in one of them improves, then it draws on the resources of the others. Regarding the impact of the explanatory variables, the “group effect” was revealed for the variables: share of urban population, net migration rate, shares of people below and above working age, share of people with higher education. Our results can favor the better design of national and regional policies to improve labor market performance in Russia based on the heterogeneity of the Russian regions.

In view of the results obtained in this communication  we can connect macroscopy and microscopy via an intermediate level of mesoobjects.

Our work as Invited Editors has been supported by some important cooperations. Our thanks go to five excellent ad hoc referees, who provided additional expertise: Laure Athias (University of Lausanne, IDHEAP); Jean Beuve (Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne); Eshien Chong (Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne); Michele Moretto (DSEA, University of Padova); Carine Staropoli (Paris School of Economics-Université and Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne).

Dishonest behavior significantly increases the cost of medical care provision. Upcoding of patients is a common form of fraud to attract higher reimbursements. Imposing audit mechanisms including fines to curtail upcoding is widely discussed among health care policy-makers. How audits and fines affect individual health care providers' behavior is empirically not well understood. To provide new evidence on fraudulent behavior in health care, we analyze the effect of a random audit including fines on individuals' honesty by means of a novel controlled behavioral experiment framed in a neonatal care context. Prevalent dishonest behavior declines significantly when audits and fines are introduced. The effect is driven by a reduction in upcoding when being detectable. Yet, upcoding increases when not being detectable as fraudulent. We find evidence that individual characteristics (gender, medical background, and integrity) are related to dishonest behavior. Policy implications are discussed.

Based on quarterly data on 31 emerging countries (among which 16 are inflation targeting countries) from 1990Q1 to 2014Q3, we obtain a strong support for the conjecture that the implementation of inflation targeting weakens the Fisherian relation between expected depreciation and the interest rate differential (uncovered interest parity condition) and thus is conducive to the appearance of the forward bias puzzle in emerging countries. We show that this reflects the performance of inflation targeting regimes in lowering the level and volatility of inflation. Our finding holds when controlling for countryspecific effects, time-specific effects, global disinflation, exchange rate management, crises, and using different econometric techniques.

The objective of our paper is to explore the extent to which the research collaborations could be an impact on the scientific performance of academic institutions. The analysis is based on data for 241 universities in Russia for 2015–2016 obtained from different sources: Interfax (privately held independent major news agency in Russia) National Ranking of Universities, monitoring of efficiency of activity of educational organizations of higher education (launched by Information-Computing Centre of Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation), and Russian Science Citation Index (largest Russian information and analytical portal in science, technology, medicine, and education and electronic library of scientific publications with 28 mlns of documents). We consider the number of citations of publications to evaluate university performance in Russia. To this end, we develop a non-overlapping generation model to evidence the theoretical idea of research externalities between academic institutions. Moreover, we implement different empirical models to test for the effect of external scientific collaborations on the institutional research quality by Federal District and scientific field. The results confirm an important positive impact of co-authoring process.

Building on a problem‐solving perspective to value creation and capture, and on the business strategy literature, we argue that the actions that knowledge‐intensive business service (KIBS) firms take to identify, select and solve client problems will affect their approach to capturing value from innovation. We apply regression analysis to data from an original survey involving a sample of 230 innovations introduced by 150 publicly traded UK and US KIBS firms. Distinguishing between cost‐ and differentiation‐oriented KIBS firms, we find that cost‐oriented firms tend to place more importance on all appropriability mechanisms than do differentiation‐oriented firms. Furthermore, the perceived importance of formal appropriability mechanisms, relative to that of all appropriability mechanisms, tends to be higher for cost‐oriented than for differentiation‐oriented firms. This association is stronger for the case of the introduction of process (rather than product) innovation. These findings contribute to the strategy and service innovation literatures, by showing that KIBS firms’ competitive strategies influence value capture, over and above the role of the innovation‐, industry‐ and institutional‐level factors examined in earlier studies.

Coproduction is a practice that encourages active interaction between customers and producers in creating products, services or events. In the urban management framework the above-mentioned concept is just starting to be put into practice and is characterized by the involvement of residents in different city activities' organization including mega events managed by local authorities. The new types of interaction between residents and authorities include participation of residents as volunteers in organization and carrying out of different city events and activities, mass collaboration or crowdsourcing, crowdfunding, recommendations to external stakeholders, couchsurfing, and slum tourism. The article examines the theoretical aspects of coproduction concept introduction in urban development, describes the types of interaction between residents and local authorities as well as the benefits of this interaction. The author has developed and empirically verified a conceptual model for willingness assessment of residents to participate in coproduction of mega events based on the example of the city of Volgograd which hosted one of the Football World Cup stages.

Wage adjustments for employees are a reaction mechanism to changing market conditions and form a significant part of pay policy. Though various attempts to explore wage levels and wage differentials have been made, wage adjustment policies remain an understudied topic. This paper analyses the determinants of wage adjustments based on data from Russian enterprises 2015–17. The analysis is based on detailed data from an employer survey which covers more than 5,000 firms in both the public and private sector. The study adopts probit models to identify the reasons which determine wage revisions, depending on internal employer characteristics and external labour market conditions.  The results are in line with previous research on the topic (Bayo-Moriones et al., 2016) and suggest that both internal and external factors influence wage adjustments. A wage adjustment is a reflection of the ability to pay meaning that revisions are often made by successful firms with high employee turnover. Institutional frameworks, especially trade union activity, affects the firm’s decision to adjust wages despite the general opinion on the insignificance of unions in Russia. This study contributes to the limited literature by analysing the determinants of wage policies depending on the firm’s characteristics. This is the first study of its kind based on extensive Russian data. 

Innovative companies are a major driver of the global economy. The typical major owner is an institutional investor. In recent years the stakes of institutional owners have increased, which should increase the role of institutional investors. Institutional investors, however, differ. Traditional investment managers, banks, insurance companies and hedge funds have different goals and strategies, so their roles in firms differ significantly. In this article we analyze the difference between technology and non-technology companies to find out the reason for the success of fast-growing corporations. This research uses a Generalized Least Square model on a sample of 12,565 firm-year observations 2004–15, to justify the assumption that different types of investors have different effects on the performance of innovative companies. The research reveals a distinction between the type of investor and the investor strategy. By focusing on the concentration of ownership, we demonstrate the performance effect on different blockholders. Our findings suggest, first, that grey investors decrease firm value; second, that passive independent institutions enhance firm performance in virtue of their active monitoring and long-term investment horizons; third, that innovative firms have different ownership patterns to traditional ones.

Democracy has not always accompanied market economy. But in modern societies, economic and political freedoms are increasingly interconnected. Democracy and market economy can support each other. This is particularly true in post-communist economies of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Thus, authoritarian tendencies observed in these and other regions can negatively affect quality of economic policy and governance.

Symptoms of currency crisis in Argentina and Turkey in August and September 2018 raised again the question over which factors determine macroeconomic and financial stability in emerging-market economies. As with previous crisis episodes in 1980s and 1990s, prudent domestic policies play the key role. Monetary and fiscal laxity, as well as structural and institutional distortions, are the main crisis causes even if external shock/contagion often serves as a trigger. Early policy correction can help in preventing a crisis and avoid its economic, social and political costs. If crisis cannot be avoided the comprehensive anti-crisis package, including up-front monetary and fiscal adjustment should be adopted as quickly as possible to arrest market panics and reverse negative expectations.

We develop a stock-flow-consistent agent-based model that comprises a realistic mechanism of money creation and parametrize it to fit actually observed data. The model is used to make out-of-sample projections of broad money and credit developments under the commencement/termination of foreign reserve accumulation by the Bank of Russia. We use direct forecasts from the agent-based model as well as the two-step approach, which implies the use of artificial data to pre-train the Bayesian vector autoregression model. We conclude that the suggested approach is competitive in forecasting and yields promising results.

We provide a bare-bones framework that uncovers the circumstances which lead either to the emergence of equally-spaced and equally-sized central places or to a hierarchy of central places. We show how these patterns reflect the preferences of agents and the efficiency of transportation and communication technologies. Under one class of agents, the economy is characterized by a uniform distribution or by a periodic distribution of central places having the same size. Under two asymmetric classes of agents, the interaction between agents may give rise to a hierarchy of settlements with one or several primate cities.

This paper analyzes the patterns of CO2 emissions for a sample of 144 countries in the period from 1992 to 2013. Environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis was tested with the help of econometric analysis for both production- and consumption-based emissions. The relationship between incomes and emissions was also examined at the level of leading national economies. The results show important distinction: while there is some evidence of decoupling between economic growth and the growth of production-based emissions at the higher level of income, consumption-based emissions continue to grow with rising incomes even in the richest countries. The further investigation is devoted to discrepancies between production and consumption EKCs which are determined by emissions embodied in international trade. Structural decomposition analysis was applied to define the contribution of different factors to the change in emissions embodied in trade with the rise of GDP per capita. While structural and technological factors are dominant in explaining this change at the low and middle level of income, the effect of volume of trade plays the key role in evolution of emissions embodied in trade in high-income countries.

The Russian Federation offers the unique example of a leading centrally planned economy swiftly transforming itself into a market-oriented economy. This paper offers a comprehensive study of inequality and mobility patterns for Russia, using multiple rounds of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Surveys over the past two decades spanning this transition. The findings show rising income levels and decreasing inequality, with the latter being mostly caused by pro-poor growth rather than redistribution. The poorest tercile experienced a growth rate that was more than 10 times that of the richest tercile, leading to less long-term inequality than short-term inequality. The analysis also finds that switching from a part-time job to a full-time job, from a lower-skill job to a higher-skill job, or staying in the formal sector is statistically significantly associated with reduced downward mobility and increased income growth. However, a similar transition from the private sector to the public sector is negatively associated with income growth

The wild cards conception as an element of foresight studies has been widely discussed by numerous scholars who have interest and qualification in strategic management field or STI policies from the end of the previous century. Some researchers focus their attention on the general key features of this phenomenon and its overall impact as well as origin, while others study possible applications of wild cards analysis in corporate and government sectors. The purpose of this research is to systematize knowledge about wild cards, determine their role in foresight practices and suggest an instrument for their detection and implementation into foresight research. For this reason, on the basis of a number of national and international foresight projects, we developed existing methodological approaches of wild cards identification, analysis and visual presentation. The results of the study were applied to Russian S&T Foresight 2030.

Many economic applications including optimal pricing and inventory management requires prediction of demand based on sales data and estimation of sales reaction to a price change. There is a wide range of econometric approaches which are used to correct a bias in estimates of demand parameters on censored sales data. These approaches can also be applied to various classes of machine learning models to reduce the prediction error of sales volume. In this study we construct two ensemble models for demand prediction with and without accounting for demand censorship. Accounting for sales censorship is based on the idea of censored quantile regression method where the model estimation is splitted on two separate parts: a) prediction of zero sales by classification model; and b) prediction of non-zero sales by regression model. Models with and without accounting for censorship are based on the predictions aggregations of Least squares, Ridge and Lasso regressions and Random Forest model. Having estimated the predictive properties of both models, we empirically test the best predictive power of the model that takes into account the censored nature of demand. We also show that machine learning method with censorship accounting provide bias corrected estimates of demand sensitivity for price change similar to econometric models.

This research studies the short-term effects of the Russian Excellence Initiative Project 5to100 on participating universities. To trace the effect, we develop a quasi-experimental econometric methodology. A control group of universities comparable to the Project 5to100 universities at the starting point of the program’s implementation was singled out using propensity score matching. Data envelopment analysis was conducted, and the Malmquist productivity index was calculated to trace how and why the efficiency of the “participants” and “non-participants” of the Project 5to100 has changed due to the project. We also investigate the direct impact of the policy on the research productivity of universities, using the average treatment effect, and difference-in-difference approaches. The final step consists of an explanatory analysis of the factors apart from the policy potentially affecting efficiency scores. We find statistically significant positive effects of the policy both on the productivity and on the efficiency of the participating universities.  

Many economic applications including optimal pricing and inventory management requires prediction of demand based on sales data and estimation of sales reaction to a price change. There is a wide range of econometric approaches which are used to correct a bias in estimates of demand parameters on censored sales data. These approaches can also be applied to various classes of machine learning models to reduce the prediction error of sales volume. In this study we construct two ensemble models for demand prediction with and without accounting for demand censorship. Accounting for sales censorship is based on the idea of censored quantile regression method where the model estimation is splitted on two separate parts: a) prediction of zero sales by classification model; and b) prediction of non-zero sales by regression model. Models with and without accounting for censorship are based on the predictions aggregations of Least squares, Ridge and Lasso regressions and Random Forest model. Having estimated the predictive properties of both models, we empirically test the best predictive power of the model that takes into account the censored nature of demand. We also show that machine learning method with censorship accounting provide bias corrected estimates of demand sensitivity for price change similar to econometric models.

This article examines the presence of the reference price effect in mergers and acquisitions in Russia, which can act as a distortion in investor perception of the influence a deal has on a company. In this study we use the Russian market as a laboratory for the investigation of behavioral effects in a relatively inefficient market. We find a relationship between the acquirer’s announcement period return and the proximity of its pre-announcement share price to the 52-week high. The 52-week high serves as a salient anchor even though it is economically irrelevant for valuation purposes. This effect appears to be stronger for deals associated with higher levels of uncertainty. The findings confirm the presence of the anchoring bias in evaluating the effect of a merger or acquisition announcement by Russian investors. We demonstrate a significant anchoring effect even for deals with a blocking (>10%) or a controlling stake (>25%) in an emerging market with a highly concentrated ownership.

Deregulation is often claimed to be the cause for financial distress. Thus it has to lead to financial defaults and losses. However, exact dependence is not clear. To verify it we tried to investigate the roots of world largest financial losses. As we found no source to extensively and completely cover those, we decided to prepare a data set of our own. By choosing a round threshold of USD 100m equivalent of loss amount as of announcement date, we arrived at the set of 117 defaults with total loss of USD 914bn in 46 years. Our key purpose is to make comprehend data set of largest losses.

Ten years after the global crisis of 2007–2009 the financial regulation has being enhanced with the pace of world stock markets growth. Latter ones have hit their historical maximum values being two to three fold higher than on the eve of the crisis. Such prudential tightening incentivizes using financial technologies to create new banking products and optimize regulatory burden. Same time it inflates the stock market bubble leading to greater fragility and increases the probability of another global crisis. Current research shows how human psychology has to be accounted for. This is relevant both for humans managing financial institutions as objects of regulation and humans benefiting from regulation when consuming financial services. It is shown that unconventional policy measure of abandoning both regulation and state deposit insurance enables to enhance financial stability. It implies more conservative behaviour and diminishes risk-appetite for both financiers and their clients.

The paper investigates the growing role of business model innovation (BMI) as a key instrument of strategic adaptation of Western multinationals in emerging economies. Despite an abundance of studies on BMI, prior works have paid little attention to how specific characteristics of emerging economy environment force MNEs to change their business models. In order to fill this gap the author developed an analytical framework allowing to trace potential directions of this changing impact, and suggested a typological classification of respective innovative business models responding to concrete challenges posed by emerging economies to MNEs. The author also concludes that the growing BMI activities in emerging economies entail very serious implications for MNEs’ strategy and organization and innovation governance mechanisms which are increasingly required to enhance their abilities to support multiple business models adapted to specific environment in all major host countries.