The Handbook of Research on International Collaboration, Economic Development, and Sustainability in the Arctic discusses the perspectives and major challenges of the investment collaboration and development and commercial use of trade routes in the Arctic. Featuring research on topics such as agricultural production, environmental resources, and investment collaboration, this book is ideally designed for policymakers, business leaders, and environmental researchers seeking coverage on new practices and solutions in the sphere of achieving sustainability in economic exploration of the Artic region

This book contains a selection of papers accepted for the presentation and discussion at the 2018 International Conference on Digital Science (DSIC’18). This Conference had the support of the Institute of Certified Specialists, Russia, AISTI (Iberian Association for Information Systems and Technologies), and Springer. It will take place Convention Centre, Budva, Montenegro, October 19-21, 2018.

DSIC’18 is an international forum for researches and practitioners to present and discuss the most recent innovations, trends, results, experiences, and concerns in the several perspectives of Digital Science. The main idea of this Conference is that the world of science is united allowing all scientists/practitioners to be able to think, analyze, and generalize their thoughts.

DSIC aims efficiently to disseminate original research results in natural, social, art, and humanities sciences. An important characteristic feature of the Conference should be the short publication time and worldwide distribution. This Conference enables fast dissemination, so conference participants can publish their papers in print and electronic format, which is then made available worldwide and accessible by numerous researchers.

The Scientific Committee of DSIC’18 was composed of multidisciplinary group of 26 experts. One hundred and seven invited reviewers who are intimately conceded with Digital Science have had the responsibility for evaluating, in a “double-blind review” process, the papers received for each of the main themes proposed for the Conference: Digital Art and Humanities; Digital Economics; Digital Education; Digital Engineering, Digital Environmental Sciences; Digital Finance; Business and Banking; Digital Media; Digital Medicine; Pharma and Public Health; Digital Public Administration; Digital Technology and Applied Sciences.

DSIC’18 received 88 contributions from 16 countries around the world. The papers accepted for the presentation and discussion at the Conference are published by Springer (this book) and will be submitted for indexing by ISI, SCOPUS, among others.

The series “Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing” contains publications on theory, applications, and design methods of Intelligent Systems and Intelligent Computing. Virtually all disciplines such as engineering, natural sciences, computer and information science, ICT, economics, business, e-commerce, environment, healthcare, life science are covered. The list of topics spans all the areas of modern intelligent systems and computing such as: computational intelligence, soft computing including neural networks, fuzzy systems, evolutionary computing and the fusion of these paradigms, social intelligence, ambient intelligence, computational neuroscience, artificial life, virtual worlds and society, cognitive science and systems, Perception and Vision, DNA and immune based systems, self-organizing and adaptive systems, e-Learning and teaching, human-centered and human-centric computing, recommender systems, intelligent control, robotics and mechatronics including human-machine teaming, knowledge-based paradigms, learning paradigms, machine ethics, intelligent data analysis, knowledge management, intelligent agents, intelligent decision making and support, intelligent network security, trust management, interactive entertainment, Web intelligence and multimedia. The publications within “Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing” are primarily proceedings of important conferences, symposia and congresses. They cover significant recent developments in the field, both of a foundational and applicable character. An important characteristic feature of the series is the short publication time and world-wide distribution. This permits a rapid and broad dissemination of research results.

This book contains a selection of papers accepted for the presentation and discussion at the 2018 International Conference on Digital Science (DSIC’18). This Conference had the support of the Institute of Certified Specialists, Russia, AISTI (Iberian Association for Information Systems and Technologies), and Springer. It will take place at Convention Centre, Budva, Montenegro, October 19–21, 2018. DSIC’18 is an international forum for researchers and practitioners to present and discuss the most recent innovations, trends, results, experiences, and concerns in the several perspectives of Digital Science. The main idea of this Conference is that the world of science is unified and united allowing all scientists/practitioners to be able to think, analyze, and generalize their thoughts. DSIC aims efficiently to disseminate original research results in natural, social, art, and humanities sciences. An important characteristic feature of the Conference should be the short publication time and worldwide distribution. This Conference enables fast dissemination, so conference participants can publish their papers in print and electronic format, which is then made available worldwide and accessible by numerous researchers. The Scientific Committee of DSIC’18 was composed of a multidisciplinary group of 26 experts. One hundred and seven invited reviewers who are intimately concerned with Digital Science have had the responsibility for evaluating, in a “double-blind review” process, the papers received for each of the main themes proposed for the Conference: Digital Art and Humanities; Digital Economics; Digital Education; Digital Engineering; Digital Environmental Sciences; Digital Finance, Business and Banking; Digital Media; Digital Medicine, Pharma and Public Health; Digital Public Administration; Digital Technology and Applied Sciences. DSIC’18 received 88 contributions from 16 countries around the world. The papers accepted for the presentation and discussion at the Conference are published by Springer (this book) and will be submitted for indexing by ISI, SCOPUS, among others.

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. 

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.

I argue that the rather unfavorable conclusions of the three papers in the session on "Coordination and Tradeoffs" might not be as bad as they seem. In particular, I dwell on challenges facing the central bank using an interest rate that is different from the risk-free rate in its Taylor rule, and show that proper redefinition of the intercept and the slope of the rule allows avoidance of inflationary bias and preserves the stability of equilibrium.

Due to the need to reindustrialize the domestic industry at the post-industrial stage of development, it has become necessary to implement megaprojects aiming at the qualitative makeover of the national economy. The purpose of this paper is to develop an industrial megaproject risk management model and methodological support based on a comparative analysis of existing approaches and using Russian and international experience. The research has resulted in two megaproject risk management models: a fragmentary model and a comprehensive one. A risk mitigation potential analysis for ongoing megaprojects has been performed confirming the efficiency of use of the comprehensive megaproject risk management model. The suggested comprehensive risk management model allows taking into consideration the main distinctive feature of modern megaprojects, i.e. multiplicity of management entities operating on the basis of the partnership principle.

Whether professional or amateur, sports businesses must develop their brand and image to meet the expectations of a diverse environment, consisting of fans, sponsors, and other stakeholders. The value and instruments of market research can provide the required resources for sports businesses to realize their plans. In Market Research in the Sports Industry, Jasenko Ljubica and Neven Seric provide a comprehensive elaboration of market research methods to be used by sports businesses. The book identifies and explains the most effective uses of market research, drawing upon real-life case studies. The application of the methods presented in this book, ranging from the simplest - monitoring the environment to the most complex sampling methods, can significantly contribute to the development of sports businesses by increasing the number of members, sponsors, followers and fans. The book will be invaluable for researchers, educators and students of Sports Management and Marketing, and it will also prove useful to sporting professionals seeking to gain a competitive edge in the market.

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 present article follows two objectives. First, to apply a recently developed spatial interaction model and discuss its power in explaining social developments. Second, to obtain information on internal migration'sdeterminants in Russia by taking into account that its eastern and western regions differ in many respects. Two alternative panel specifications are considered, labelled “spatial interaction specification with exogenous spatial lags” and “gravity-type specification with network effects”. While both specifications are designed to capture the impacts of neighbouring regions in migration dynamics, they differ with respect to the implementation of fixed effects. It is argued that neighbourhood impacts manifest themselves either as spillover effects, which amplify a variable's impact, or competition effects, which attenuate them. The results show that variables indeed differ from each other in these respects, demonstrating how migration patterns are subject to events beyond the directly involved regions, and that these are furthermore influenced by the distances between regions. In addition, the results provide further evidence that migration determinants differ for Eastern and Western Russia.

The article is devoted to the problem of development and application of information technologies in the strategic management of industrial enterprises under uncertainty based on mathematical modeling. The purpose of the article is to develop tools that support decision-making when choosing strategic guidelines for the development of enterprises using economic and mathematical methods. The study of the system of strategic management of industrial enterprises, which has the property of development, based on the application of the methodology of system analysis. A model of the strategic management process in the form of a logical structure containing a combined decisionmaking procedure for solving problems, ranging from the study of the environment and the development of the mission, and ending with the creation of economic and mathematical tools and its use to evaluate decisions. The economic and mathematical tools to support decision-making on the strategic guidelines for the development of industrial enterprises in the conditions of stochastic uncertainty. As the characteristics of the cost-effectiveness of strategies selected measure of profitability. The toolkit is created in the class of simulation models and allows you to reproduce the dynamics of enterprise profits and capital costs by the method of statistical tests, as well as to predict on this basis the profitability of various options of strategic guidelines for the operation of the enterprise. The constructed economic and mathematical models are algorithmized and implemented in a software product. The article demonstrates the work of the software product in the course of simulation experiments and their processing in the evaluation of the selected strategic benchmark in terms of profitability. The built model tools are designed for use in industrial enterprises to support strategic decisions.

The problem of managing the R&D sector sustainability in Russia is of particular relevance in terms of scaling external and internal challenges faced by the country. Such challenges require an even greater intensification of the efforts to solve the problems accumulated in Russian economy and innovation system and associated with the state transition to new technological way. A key criterion of R&D sector competitive sustainability is the creation of practice-oriented and relevant results of intellectual activity. Correlation analysis of innovative activity indicators in developed countries over the 2007-2015 revealed a pattern of two-fold excess of export licenses over the amount of public investment in science. This dependence is crucial in the study of competitive sustainability within R&D sector. The method of assessing the efficiency of public spending on R&D, including an analysis of the dynamics of the growth rate of performance indicators and their financing in case of R&D completed in the period is proposed as the main management tool of R&D sector competitive sustainability.

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore the psychological adjustment process of expatriates from Chinese multinational enterprises, including how their social capital affects this process.

Design/methodology/approach

This qualitative investigation was based on semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 26 Chinese expatriates. The grounded theory method was applied to guide the data collection and analysis.

Findings

The psychological adjustment process of Chinese expatriates includes three periods: crisis, self-adjustment and self-growth period. In addition, bonding capital (including organizational, family and co-cultural colleagues’ support) is more conducive to Chinese expatriates’ psychological well-being than bridging capital (e.g. host-nationals’ support). Finally, a separation acculturation strategy is more conducive to psychological adjustment, rather than an integration strategy.

Research limitations/implications

This study focused on expatriates themselves. Future research should consider other stakeholders (e.g. organizations, family), and examine expatriate adjustment from new perspectives (e.g. strategic human resource management, work-family balance). This study had a small sample and focused on only one organization. Future research could usefully add other Chinese multinational corporations, and other Chinese expatriates to expand the generalizability of the current findings.

Practical implications

This study suggests the possible benefits of management practices for expatriates. Organizations can develop an “expatriate bubble” to help structure basic life overseas. Organizations could develop family-support programs and make them expatriate-supportive. Organizations should also strengthen the connections between expatriates and local colleagues.

Originality/value

Few scholars have elaborated on how different support groups (based on their cultural backgrounds) influence the psychological adjustment of expatriates. Until now, mainland Chinese expatriates have received little attention. In addition, this research takes a significant step forward by illuminating the psychological adjustment of Chinese expatriates from a social capital perspective.

Technological development and digitalization plays a crucial role in financial sector by allowing firms to create value in a rapidly changing environment. The acquisitions of firms related to financial technologies are one of the ways to obtain vital knowledge. In order to identify the fintech companies we are looking at firms that are involved in business activities in both the IT and financial sectors. By examining the growing role of fintech firms in the recent mergers and acquisitions from an investor point of view, this paper contributes to the existing literature by investigating the post-acquisition performance of the acquirer firms measured by abnormal returns. We discovered significant positive average abnormal return after acquisition of fintech companies in the short-term and negative average abnormal return in the long-term using event studymethodology. The specifics of cross-border acquisitions, the level of the domestic market development of the acquirer, and other characteristics of M&A deals are considered in order to explain the reaction of investors to announcements of fintech firms’ acquisitions. The determinants of corresponding M&A deals in emerging and developed markets were revealed.

Abstract Purpose – This paper focuses on the motivation of females to start businesses in developed and emerging economies. Although the issues related to the motivation of entrepreneurs have been widely studied, there are a few studies focusing on the differences in women’s entrepreneurial motivation in countries with different levels of market economy development. Furthermore, existing studies on female founders mainly adapt the concepts that have often been developed in male-dominated paradigm. The purpose of this paper is to explore in depth motivations of female entrepreneurs in different contexts and discover the dissimilarities in women’s entrepreneurial motivations in countries with different levels of economic development. Design/methodology/approach – The qualitative research approach is applied in this study to explore the social-driven and profit-drivenmotives of female entrepreneurs. The authors have employed purposeful sampling to select cases. The authors investigated the motivations of 45 female entrepreneurs in Norway (12), Russia (21) and Ukraine (12). Semi-structured interviews were used to collect primary data. The authors have also triangulated the data collected frominterviews with the data available on the internet, company reports and newspaper publications. Findings – The findings indicate that women often pursuit business opportunities to satisfy social needs, rather than focusing on traditional business outcomes such as growth or profit. However, different contexts – the emerging economies context of Russia and Ukraine and the developed one of Norway – seem to influence the motivation to establish new ventures differently. The study found a stronger desire to contribute to a society’s needs among female founders in Norway compared to their counterparts in Russia and Ukraine. This indicates that cultural and social context in developed countries, such as in Norway, probably provides more possibilities for female entrepreneurs for self-realisation elsewhere leaving more room for focusing on societal issues in business in comparison with emerging countries contexts. Originality/value – A novel conceptual contribution is the exploration of links between the social-driven and profit-driven motives of female entrepreneurs in emerging and developed economises. The study also adds to debates relating to context embeddedness of smaller firms.

As for all health systems, in Russia, the demand for medical care is greater than its health system is able to guarantee the supply of. In this context, removing services from the state guaranteed package is an option that is receiving serious consideration. In this paper, we examine the attitudes of the Russian population to such a reform. Exploiting a widely- used methodology, we explore the population’s willingness to pay for cooperative health insurance. Distinguishing between socioeconomic and demographic factors, health-related indicators and risk aversion we find, consistent with other literature, positive income and risk aversion effects. We interpret the former as evidence that the Russian population is not opposed to the idea of progressive redistribution, to pool the costs of health-related risks; and the latter as evidence that risk-averse individuals demand more insurance coverage. In exploring these results further, we show that cognitive bias is important: overestimating the benefits leads to the purchase of additional insurance, while underestimating lowers demand for insurance. Our overall conclusion is that the introduction of a supplementary cooperative health insurance scheme in Russia could increase the accessibility of healthcare, lower the tendency for informal payments, incentivize the personal maintenance of good health and create a new source of funding for public healthcare.

The article is devoted to the calculation of the dynamic hedge ratio based on three different types of volatility models, among which S-BEKK GARCH model takes into account cross-sectional dependence. The hedging strategy is built for eight stock-futures pairs on energy market in Russia.

Plastic bags create large amounts of waste and cause lasting environmental problems when inappropriately discarded. In 2015, England introduced a mandatory five pence (US$0.06/€0.06) charge to customers for each single-use plastic bag taken from large stores. Combining a longitudinal survey (n=1,230), supermarket observations (n=3,762), and a longitudinal interview study (n=43), we investigated people’s behavioural and attitudinal responses to the charge. We show that all age, gender, and income groups in England substantially reduced their plastic bag usage within one month after the charge was introduced, with interviewees highlighting the ease of taking their own bags. Support for the bag charge also increased among all key demographic groups. Increased support for the plastic bag charge in turn predicted greater support for other charges to reduce plastic waste, suggesting a ‘policy spillover’ effect. Results indicate a broad and positive effect of the bag charge, which appears to have catalysed wider waste awareness among the British public. This may facilitate the introduction of other policies to eliminate avoidable single-use plastics and packaging.

This article studies the evolution of housing rents in St. Petersburg between 1880 and 1917, covering an eventful period of Russian and world history. We collect and digitize over 5,000 rental advertisements from a local newspaper, which we use together with geo-coded addresses and detailed structural characteristics to construct a quality-adjusted rent price index in continuous time. We provide the first pre-war and pre-Soviet index based on market data for any Russian housing market. In 1915, one of the world’s earliest rent control and tenant protection policies was introduced in response to soaring prices following the outbreak of World War I. We analyze the impact of this policy: before the regulation rents were increasing at a similarly rapid pace to other consumer prices; the policy reversed that trend. We find evidence for official compliance with the policy, document a rise in tenure duration and strongly increased rent affordability for workers after the introduction of the policy. We conclude that the immediate prelude to the October Revolution was indeed characterized by economic turmoil, but rent affordability and rising rents were no longer the dominating problems.This article studies the evolution of housing rents in St. Petersburg between 1880 and 1917, covering an eventful period of Russian and world history. We collect and digitize over 5,000 rental advertisements from a local newspaper, which we use together with geo-coded addresses and detailed structural characteristics to construct a quality-adjusted rent price index in continuous time. We provide the first pre-war and pre-Soviet index based on market data for any Russian housing market. In 1915, one of the world’s earliest rent control and tenant protection policies was introduced in response to soaring prices following the outbreak of World War I. We analyze the impact of this policy: before the regulation rents were increasing at a similarly rapid pace to other consumer prices; the policy reversed that trend. We find evidence for official compliance with the policy, document a rise in tenure duration and strongly increased rent affordability for workers after the introduction of the policy. We conclude that the immediate prelude to the October Revolution was indeed characterized by economic turmoil, but rent affordability and rising rents were no longer the dominating problems.

This study focuses on the ground transportation system and its impact on the rents in 30 of Russia's largest cities. It also compares the effect with subway transit networks. The data set includes rent information from an all-Russia online advertisement website Avito and various measures of proximity to the public transit network stops (including subways for cities with them). The analysis is conducted using linear hedonic models. The results show that the ground transportation proximity is important for housing rent formation in both cities with and without subways, although the effect for subway stations is greater in comparison. Nevertheless, the benefits of a denser ground transportation system are high and stable, whereas the distance to the closest bus stop and the number within the walking distance are important solely for cities with a subway system and without it, respectively.

        The paper explores the effect of migration of Russian settlers on the intra-regional development in Kazakhstan. We use the 1897 census dataset of the Russian Empire and modern economic data to provide links between Russian settlements in Kazakhstan in 1897 and the current level of economic development. Exploiting exogenous geographic and geopolitical sources of variation across twenty-six districts (uyezd) we provide the empirical evidence of positive impact of the migration of Russians in XVIII-XIX centuries on the current level of development. The paper discusses several channels of such influence: human capital formation channel and the Soviet Union industrialization policy. 

Economists tend to reduce all corruption to impersonal market-like transactions, ignoring the role of social ties in shaping corruption. In this paper, we show that this simplification substantially limits the understanding of corruption. We distinguish between market corruption (impersonal bribery), and network (or parochial) corruption which is conditional on the social connections between bureaucrats and private agents. We argue, both theoretically and empirically, that these types of corruption have different qualities. Using data from the Life in Transition Survey (LiTS) which covers all post-socialist countries we show, first, that the correlation between market and network corruption is weak, which implies that ignoring network corruption leads not only to an underestimation of the overall scale of corruption but also biases national corruption rankings. Secondly, in line with theoretical expectations, we find that network corruption is more persistent over time, less related to contemporary national socio-economic and institutional characteristics and has stronger historical roots than market corruption. Yet, network corruption, unlike bribery, is not able to ‘grease the wheels’ and is not associated with political instability. Lastly, we show that the decline in bribery which was observed in almost all post-socialist countries in the period from 2010 to 2016 was accompanied by rising network corruption in many of them, which has important policy implications.

This article studies the evolution of housing rents in St. Petersburg between 1880 and 1917, covering an eventful period of Russian and world history. We collect and digitize over 5,000 rental advertisements from a local newspaper, which we use together with geo-coded addresses and detailed structural characteristics to construct a quality-adjusted rent price index in continuous time. We provide the first pre-war and pre-Soviet index based on market data for any Russian housing market. In 1915, one of the world’s earliest rent control and tenant protection policies was introduced in response to soaring prices following the outbreak of World War I. We analyze the impact of this policy: while before the regulation rents were increasing at a similar rapid pace as other consumer prices, the policy reversed this trend. We find evidence for official compliance with the policy, document a rise in tenure duration and strongly increased rent affordability among workers after the introduction of the policy. We conclude that the immediate prelude to the October Revolution was indeed characterized by economic turmoil, but rent affordability and rising rents were no longer the dominating problems.

Incentives are usually designed to promote desirable behaviour. In many instances, however, even in the absence of an incentive scheme, people may deliberately choose to act as desired. In such a case, introducing a system of incentives may discourage people from doing this. The discouragement mechanism works through the pos- sibility of errors that may wrongly classify the observed behaviour as undesirable, and hence trigger penalties. The effect is amplified by pessimism, which leads to an overestimation of the error probability, and by the disappointment from errors, which increases the disutility of unfair penalties. This approach is capable of ex- plaining two typical observations for enterprises/industries subject to environmental regulation – overcompliance (excessive investment in compliance) and discretionary inspections by regulators (raised frequency of inspections to enterprises suspected of non-compliance).

We develop a theoretical model in which adoption decisions are based on information received from others about the quality of a new technology and on their risk attitude. We test the predictions of this model using a field experiment in Bangladesh. We show that treated farmers who receive better training in System of Rice Intensification (SRI) technology have more accurate information about this technology, and have a higher impact on the adoption rate of untreated farmers. We also find that untreated farmers that are more risk-averse tend to adopt less and are less influenced by their treated peers. Finally, a trained farmers' impact on his untrained peers increases if he himself adopts SRI technology. Our results indicate that the crucial determinant of technology adoption for untreated farmers is their degree of risk aversion and the accuracy and reliability of information transmission about the quality of technology circulated among farmers.

Physical activity is considered today as a leading factor in health and well-being in developed countries. With decreasing levels of alcohol and tobacco consumption, widespread sedentary lifestyles have taken centre stage among the predictors of non-communicable diseases. That is why Russia, along with other countries, has adopted the “Physical activity strategy for the WHO European Region 2016–2025”. Young people are among the target groups of public policy promoting physical activity. This paper investigates physical activity among young people aged 15 to 24 years. The empirical study is based on a descriptive and econometric analysis of micro-data from the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS), 2000–2016. The research shows that 50% of young men and 65% of young women do not exercise on a regular basis. Both for men and for women, the probability of physical activity is positively related to their educational level, household income, and residence in capital cities. Negative relations were found between the probability of physical activity and smoking, status of married person, and employed and non-employed status. The results for alcohol consumption, body mass index and self-assessed health are inconclusive for this age group. The results confirm the necessity of better-targeted public policy motivating physical activity in youth. Overall, policy measures motivating young people to take part in physical activity will have a long-term effect. Habits developed in youth often persist into adulthood. The result will be a gain in the health and longevity of the Russian population.

Public procurement costs evaluation is important both for procurement optimization at the company level and for evaluating the public procurement regulation system. This paper presents a survey-based methodological approach to public procurement costs evaluation at the macro level. We have modified the PwC approach and developed an alternative public procurement cost evaluation methodology at the macro level. The PwC methodology was adapted to developing and transitional economies and piloted on Russian data. Average costs of each type of procurement procedures implemented in 2016 were evaluated. A regression analysis of factors impacting public procurement costs evaluation revealed considerable differences between respondents who have and do not have experience with complex procurement procedures. Although the average overall costs of public procurements in Russia amounted to about 1% of the total value of concluded contracts, the figure stands at 6.6–8.1% for small purchases. This exceeds the economy from price decrease and calls for a need to simplify regulation of such procurements.

Estimates of the term structure of interest rates depend heavily on the quality of the market data from which it is constructed. Estimated rates can be incorrect because of observation errors and omissions in the data. The usual way to deal with the heteroscedasticity of observation errors is by introducing weights in the fitting procedure. There is currently no consensus in the literature about the choice of such weights. We introduce a non-parametric bootstrap-based method of introducing observation errors drawn from the empirical distribution into the model data, which allows us to perform a comparison test of different weighting schemes without implicitly favoring one of the contesting models – a common design flaw in comparison studies. We use government bonds from several countries with examples of both liquid and illiquid bond markets. We show that realistic observation errors can greatly distort the estimated yield curve. Moreover, we show that using different weights or other modifications to account for observation errors in bond price data does not always improve the term structure estimates, and often worsens the situation. Based on our comparison, we advise to either use equal weights or weights proportional to the inverse duration in practical applications.

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.