The economies of Central and Eastern Europe, Caucasus, and Central Asia (CEECCA) grew at a varying pace in 2000–2019, with an average rate of 6.5 percent per annum (GDP, PPP). This economic progress was accompanied by some positive changes in environmental performance, but not in all areas and not in all countries in the region.

Maps and diagrams have long been used by science and education. The results and achievements of geography, astronomy, biology, economics have always been presented in the form of maps. Modern methods and tools of network science allow to deeper understand collaboration because relations between agents of activity are represented as a map. For many collaborative educational systems maps of relations between agents and activity products are built automatically. However, these diagrams are not used in educational practice as tools for better learning. The paper provides examples of how the diagrams were used in educational practice in order to support a group reflection of collaborative activities.

This book, a philosophical consideration of Soviet socialism, is not meant simply to revisit the communist past; its aim, rather, is to witness certain zones where capitalism’s domination is resisted—the zones of countercapitalist critique, civil society agencies, and theoretical provisions of emancipation or progress—and to inquire to what extent those zones are in fact permeated by unconscious capitalism and thus unwittingly affirm the capitalist condition.

By means of the philosophical and politico-economical consideration of Soviet socialism of the 1960 and 1970s, this book manages to reveal the hidden desire for capitalism in contemporaneous anticapitalist discourse and theory. The research is marked by a broad cross-disciplinary approach based on political economy, philosophy, art theory, and cultural theory that redefines old Cold War and Slavic studies’ views of the post-Stalinist years, as well as challenges the interpretations of this period of historical socialism in Western Marxist thought.

This book is an analysis of the developments associated with the Belt and Road Initiative (B&RI) five years after Xi Jinping announced both the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) and the 21st Maritime Silk Road (21MSR). Together, these two dimensions constitute the B&RI, providing the so-called Chinese ‘project of the century’ with regional, inter-regional and global reach. This book aims at assessing the impact of the B&RI in all these dimensions and levels of influence. This is a current and promising theme, not only in the short and medium terms, but also within a broader timescale, reflecting Chinese strategic thinking itself, since Chinese philosophy and culture are oriented towards long-term and inter-generational perspectives. Likewise, both the title of this publication and the way it has been organized result from the empirical perception that China asserts a conservative attitude towards foreign affairs, redesigned in multiple dimensions, to create a perception of domestic unity and global prestige. In this vein of thought, the B&RI is already influencing and will continue to influence, directly or indirectly, the current economic and political order.

The authors introduce ongoing child welfare reform in Russia, consider the international and national context, as well as the main drivers of these reforms and their current results. In addition, a literature review of field is also provided. Child welfare reform in Russia builds on the idea of every child’s right to grow up in a family. The main aim is to deinstitutionalize the child welfare system by promoting adoptions and fostering, restructuring the remaining residential institutions into home-like environments and creating community-based family support services. The chapter introduces the main concepts and terminology used to describe the child welfare system, the research questions of the volume, and employs a neo-institutionalist framework as the theoretical framework of the book. The volume analyses how reform is implemented, which echoes a fundamental change in the ideological premises of child welfare policy. Thus, the reform has shifted the course of the child welfare policy in Russia. The volume examines how the reforms are affecting the institutions and practices of child welfare in Russia, what kind of institutional change has followed the shift in the ideals, and what are the intended and unintended consequences of these reform processes. Finally, the chapter gives a brief overview of the chapters in the volume.

The bond market is a key securities market and emerging economies present exciting, new investment opportunities. This timely book provides insights into these emerging bond markets through empirical models and analytical databases, i.e. Bloomberg, Eikon Refinitiv and the Russian Cbonds.

The book looks at the dynamics of the development of emerging bond markets, their competitiveness, features and patterns using macro and micro level data. It also takes into consideration various securities type i.e. government, corporate, sub-federal and municipal bonds, to identify respective challenges and risks. The book also analyses factors that may inhibit or stimulate a well-balanced financial market. It includes case studies of Asian, Latin American and Russian bond markets, as also as cross-country comparisons.

It will be a useful reference for anyone who is interested to learn more of the bond market and the modelling techniques for critical data analysis.

This book explores the ongoing transformation processes in various education systems, including those in Asia. Drawing on research, policy and practice in a diverse range of contexts to illuminate the process of system transformation and improvement, it provides a rich comparative basis for considering large-scale reform and offers contemporary reflections and insights into the process of school and system improvement. The book features informed critique, as well as descriptions, analyses and assessments of system reform in all its facets. Accordingly, it offers unique perspectives on the change processes, and reveals how numerous countries in Asia and elsewhere are tackling the challenge of transforming their schools and education systems.

This publication is the culmination of the 16th International Scientific Conference entitled “Human Potential Development” (HPD). The conference was held in Łódź between May the 28th–30th, 2019, and was patronized by the Associate Professor Tomasz Czapla, the Dean of the Faculty of Management at the University of Łódź, and also by the International Academic Network HPD CEEUS. The international nature of the conference resulted in ten articles in this publication being written in five languages, with English being the leading language of the conference. The aim of the conference was the international exchange of knowledge in the field of HPD in the context of the latest, theoretical and practical solutions, with particular emphasis on the need to create, motivate and develop the driving force of organizational changes – employees and managers. It was assumed that this goal would be implemented within three conference working areas: 1) using and developing human potential, 2) new challenges within the mentioned area, and 3) developing models and practices related to human potential and human resource management. The concept of HPD is common in the international human resource management literature, which emphasises its strategic dimension, and combines organizational and social goals with the promotion of a competitive advantage based on the human capital concept. At the same time, this strategic dimension is inseparably accompanied by the focus on the needs, aspirations, growth and development of people. As a consequence of the implementation of both dimensions, the creation of a learning and development culture has been observed as an inherent feature of training planning and implementation, as well as the creation of personal, employee and citizen development programs. Each of the authors presents different viewpoints within their HPD research, but the common theme of all findings and considerations were the expectations, decisions and behaviors of people in specific contexts of economic reality. The publication opens with an article by the British author William Chambers, a retired professor at Hope University in Liverpool, a longtime charity 12 • Introduction community activist in the UK. He presents examples and types of difficult working conditions, which sometimes lead to dysfunctional behaviors of volunteers, employees and managers of these organizations. The author describes the associated human resource (HR) management practices as well as the context in which they are used. It is worth noting the summary of the article, which is an attempt to answer questions about the specificity of charitable organizations, actors performing their roles, the essence of managing these organizations and the importance of estimating personnel risk. A team of Lithuanian researchers, including Irena Bakanauskiene, Rita Bendaravićiene and Inesa Daugintaite, refers to the important issue of happiness in the workplace and its multidimensionality. This topic is presented using the example of research results from teachers. Although all dimensions and attributes of employee happiness are important for the surveyed employees, reality does not meet employee expectations – especially in the area of motivation and remuneration systems. The importance of employee communication competences for the quality of services in the public and non-profit sectors is presented by Barbara Batko, who indicates some features of socially useful information, the development of which requires specific and universal competences for the purposes of handling the communication process. It is worth noting that these are well known and important components of human capital, that is, adequate knowledge, the ability to think critically or search for cause and effect relationships. Martina Grófová allows the audience to consider the possibility of implementing the principles of a circular economy in Slovakia. This is one of the possibilities of transition from serial production to production based on customer value, but with a more rational use of resources and reduction of the negative impact on the environment of manufactured products. However, it is worth paying attention to the need to build consumer awareness in this new reality and the responsibility of companies in this matter. Shaping customer relationships in e-commerce is a key corporate responsibility. Justyna Majchrzak-Lepczyk is able to highlight the purchasing process of e-customers and presents the results of her own research in this area. It is worth paying attention to the essence of employee competences and their ability to read the needs of e-buyers. A research team consisting of Zdenko Stacho, Katarína Stachová and Martina Grófová draws attention to the importance and openness of communication as an instrument of engaging human resources in order to maintain organizational competitiveness in the context of the speed of market changes and Introduction • 13 their nature. What is interesting is the informal communication and information technology (IT) support highlighted by the authors. Vladimir Šulc and Petr Jedinák take up the subject of the requirement to increase IT security of the information flow in the context of its integration with the legislative environment of the European Union, exemplified by the Czech Republic. The authors emphasize the increased vulnerability of IT systems to dangers in the network and the role of programmers in securing it. Based on two surveys and a series of interviews in the business service sector, Robert Marciniak presents Hungarian experience in the field of the impact of technological progress on the automation of service processes. The author discusses the resistance and expectations of employees towards the described trend. Evgeniy Borisovich Morgunov and Igor Borisovich Gurkov present the results of research on the production plants of foreign corporations operating in Russia. They show the features and processes of human resource management. The context of the described solutions and the indicated tensions between East and West are presented. We conclude with the consideration of Jiří Stýblo, who draws attention to the impact of digitization and automation on HR processes and the work environment which are changing the skill requirements of HR specialists and managers. This publication is intended for readers who want to expand their knowledge of the essence of building the capacity of individuals, teams and societies in a comprehensive and non-trivial way. At the same time, it encourages reflection and a holistic view of the phenomenon of human potential. I encourage you to read the aforementioned conference papers.

This book studies complex systems with elements represented by random variables. Its main goal is to study and compare uncertainty of algorithms of network structure identification with applications to market network analysis. For this, a mathematical model of random variable network is introduced, uncertainty of identification procedure is defined through a risk function, random variables networks with different measures of similarity (dependence) are discussed, and general statistical properties of identification algorithms are studied. The volume also introduces a new class of identification algorithms based on a new measure of similarity and prove its robustness in a large class of distributions, and presents applications to social networks, power transmission grids, telecommunication networks, stock market networks, and brain networks through a theoretical analysis that identifies network structures. Both researchers and graduate students in computer science, mathematics, and optimization will find the applications and techniques presented useful.

 

How does peripherality challenge methodology and theory-making? This book examines how the peripheral can be incorporated into ethnographic research, and reflects on what it means to be on the periphery—ontologically and epistemologically. Starting from the premise that clarity and fixity as ideals of modernity prevent us from approaching that which cannot be easily captured and framed into scientific boundaries, the book argues for remaining on the boundary between the known and the unknown in order to surpass this ethnographic limit. Its ethnographic case studies engage with a series of empirical and theoretical issues, including: What is at the centre and what is at the periphery of what we do? How can we represent what lies beneath the threshold of verbal reasoning, or does not respond to the criteria for widely recognised forms of knowledge? Does learning entail unlearning? Peripheral Methodologies shows that peripherality is not only to be seen as a marginal condition, but rather as a form of theory-making and practice that incorporates reflexivity and experimentation.

This textbook covers the main theoretical issues of international security analysis (definitions of basic notions/categories, methodological issues, description of concepts and theories), as well as practical and political aspects of the activities of world powers and key international organizations (UN, OSCE, EU, NATO, CSTO, SCO, etc.) in the areas of war and peace, conflict resolution and settlement, limitation and reduction of armaments, combating terrorism, and other contemporary threats and challenges to international security. The publication contains extensive analysis of facts/events, infographics, and a bibliography. It is addressed to researchers, graduate students, master 's students, postgraduate students, and anyone interested in international security issues.

This book presents a novel and innovative approach to the study of social evolution using case studies from the Old and the New World, from prehistory to the present. This approach is based on examining social evolution through the evolution of social institutions. Evolution is defined as the process of structural change. Within this framework the society, or culture, is seen as a system composed of a vast number of social institutions that are constantly interacting and changing. As a result, the structure of society as a whole is also evolving and changing. 

The authors posit that the combination of evolving social institutions explains the non-linear character of social evolution and that every society develops along its own pathway and pace. Within this framework, society should be seen as the result of the compound effect of the interactions of social institutions specific to it. Further, the transformation of social institutions and relations between them is taking place not only within individual societies but also globally, as institutions may be trans-societal, and even institutions that operate in one society can arise as a reaction to trans-societal trends and demands. 

The book argues that it may be more productive to look at institutions even within a given society as being parts of trans-societal systems of institutions since, despite their interconnectedness, societies still have boundaries, which their members usually know and respect. Accordingly, the book is a must-read for researchers and scholars in various disciplines who are interested in a better understanding of the origins, history, successes and failures of social institutions. 

A collection of essays written in 2012-2019 on the evolution of Putin's regime in Russia in the perspective of Russian history, society and political culture. 

Museum Diplomacy in the Digital Age explores online museums as sites of contemporary cultural diplomacy.

Building on scholarship that highlights how museums can constitute and regulate citizens, construct national communities, and project messages across borders, the book explores the political powers of museums in their online spaces. Demonstrating that digital media allow museums to reach far beyond their physical locations, Grincheva investigates whether online audiences are given the tools to co-curate museums and their collections to establish new pathways for international cultural relations, exchange and, potentially, diplomacy. Evaluating the online capacities of museums to exert cultural impacts, the book illuminates how online museum narratives shape audience perceptions and redefine their cultural attitudes and identities.

Museum Diplomacy in the Digital Age will be of interest to academics and students teaching or taking courses on museums and heritage, communication and media, cultural studies, cultural diplomacy, international relations and digital humanities. It will also be useful to practitioners around the world who want to learn more about the effect digital museum experiences have on international audiences.

Recent Applications of Financial Risk Modelling and Portfolio Management is a pivotal reference source that provides vital research on the use of modern data analysis as well as quantitative methods for developing successful portfolio and risk management techniques. While highlighting topics such as credit scoring, investment strategies, and budgeting, this publication explores diverse models for achieving investment goals as well as improving upon traditional financial modelling methods. This book is ideally designed for researchers, financial analysts, executives, practitioners, policymakers, academicians, and students seeking current research on contemporary risk management strategies in the financial sector.

This fifty-eighth volume of the Annotated Leading Cases of International Criminal Tribunals contains decisions taken by the ICTR in the years 2013-2014. It provides the reader with the full text of the most important decisions, identical to the original version and including concurring, separate and dissenting opinions. Distinguished experts in the field of international criminal law have commented on these decisions.

This book explores Russia’s efforts towards both adapting to and shaping a world in transformation. Russia has been largely marginalized in the post-Cold War era and has struggled to find its place in the world, which means that the chaotic changes in the world present Russia with both threats and opportunities. The rapid shift in the international distribution of power and emergence of a multipolar world disrupts the existing order, although it also enables Russia to diversify it partnerships and restore balance. Adapting to these changes involves restructuring its economy and evolving the foreign policy. The crises in liberalism, environmental degradation, and challenge to state sovereignty undermine political and economic stability while also widening Russia’s room for diplomatic maneuvering. This book analyzes how Russia interprets these developments and its ability to implement the appropriate responses. 

Forest ecosystems, their products and services play an important role in achieving ambitious climate change mitigation objectives at the same time requiring profound adaptation to climate change. Forest management schemes to support climate action have to be developed within their regional context but also have to be aligned with national or EU-level climate, forest and sustainability policies. The conference on “Managing forests in the 21st century” is the final conference of the FORMASAM, REFORCE and FOREXCLIM research projects. The conference bringstogether scientific experts on forest management from all over Europe facing very specific management challenges. The aim isto discuss and improve the understanding the role of forests and forest management in the context of climate change. The conference addresses climate change impacts, as well as needs for mitigation and adaptation especially with regard to the following scientific questions: 1. What are the impacts of climate extremes and disturbances? 2. What are the management challenges (and options) for resilient forests? 3. What can we do to increase the contribution of forest management to climate change mitigation?

According to theories on moral balancing, a prosocial act can decrease people’s motivation to engage in subsequent prosocial behavior, because people feel that they have already achieved a positive moral self-perception. However, there is also empirical evidence showing that people actually need to be recognized by others in order to establish and affirm their self-perception through their prosocial actions. Without social recognition, moral balancing could possibly fail. In this paper, we investigate in two laboratory experiments how social recognition of prosocial behavior influences subsequent moral striving. Building on self-completion theory, we hypothesize that social recognition of prosocial behavior (self-serving behavior) weakens (strengthens) subsequent moral striving. In Study 1, we show that a prosocial act leads to less subsequent helpfulness when it was socially recognized as compared to a situation without social recognition. Conversely, when a self-serving act is socially recognized, it encourages subsequent helpfulness. In Study 2, we replicate the effect of social recognition on moral striving in a more elaborated experimental setting and with a larger participant sample. We again find that a socially recognized prosocial act leads to less subsequent helpfulness compared to an unrecognized prosocial act. Our results shed new light on the boundary conditions of moral balancing effects and underscore the view that these effects can be conceptualized as a dynamic of self-completion.

We systematically investigate prisoner’s dilemma and dictator games with valence framing. We find that give versus take frames influence subjects’ behavior and beliefs in the prisoner’s dilemma games but not in the dictator games. We conclude that valence framing has a stronger impact on behavior in strategic interactions, i.e., in the prisoner’s dilemma game, than in allocation tasks without strategic interaction, i.e., in the dictator game.

The article describes research into the Russian entertainment ticketing market. The aim of this work is to identify the most effective methods of events promotion that affect demand and the decision to purchase tickets for a particular type of open event. The study is based on 10 in-depth interviews with experts on the events industry and an online survey of 290 respondents of different age groups, conducted to identify consumer preferences for method of ticket purchase for entertainment events, the main sources of information about events of interest and their attitude to advertising of these events. On the basis of an analysis of consumer preferences, the experience of the target audience of various events and the expert opinions of event managers, the authors made conclusions regarding the effectiveness of various methods to promote entertainment in online and offline formats among visitors of different ages. In addition, a tendency towards a complete transition of the Russian ticketing market to the Internet was forecast.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, comparison of transition strategies of China versus those in Central and Eastern Europe raised controversies in the economic and political science literature. However, differences between China and the countries of the former Soviet bloc in their transition strategies resulted not necessarily from a deliberate political choice but from different initial conditions. Low-income and largely rural China, after its first radical step (de-collectivisation of agriculture in 1978), could move more gradually due to its under-industrialisation and retaining administrative control over the economy. The over-industrialised Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and former Soviet Union (FSU) countries where the previous command system of economic management spontaneously collapsed at the end of 1980s, did not have such an option. They had to conduct market-oriented reforms as quickly as they could, with all the associated economic and social pain. Regardless of speed and strategy of transition, almost all previously centrally-planned economies, including China, completed building basic foundations of a market system by the early 2000s although the quality of economic and political institutions and policies differ between the sub-regional groups and individual countries.

The objective of this paper is to reveal the main directions of changes in Russian agribusiness caused by the food embargo through the lens of interfirm relationships.

Design/methodology/approach

Qualitative research in the form of focus group was conducted. The focus group consisted of 9 participants, representatives of the senior management of Russian agribusinesses.

Findings and implications

The study reveals that the Russian food embargo contributes to the development of interfirm relationships in the Russian agribusiness. Both retailers and manufacturers tend to use a relational approach and to develop interfirm relationships in order to build sustainable value chains and long-term relationships with partners. The resulting conclusions represent important changes in interfirm relationships between different actors of agribusiness: (1) retailers tend to interact with providers toward building sustainable value chains; (2) at the same time the criteria imposed by retailers to their suppliers are gradually changing. The possibility to change the supply conditions plays a significant role as does as the ability to operate in a turbulent environment.

Originality

Despite the large number of empirical studies exploring the impact of the embargo from different angles, there is still a lack of research concerning the consequences of embargoes in terms of interfirm relationships. This study extends the literature on the impact of embargoes and fulfills an identified need to study the consequences of embargoes in terms of developing interfirm relationships. This is the first Russian study to empirically examine the impact of the embargo on Russian firms’ interfirm relationships.

The paper focuses on the issue of developing essay writing skills in the context of IELTS preparation and explores the issue of whether academic debate can enhance STEM students’ ability to structure their essays, develop a smooth progression of ideas, and provide supported and extended arguments, which, in turn, may result in higher scores for the IELTS Task Response and Coherence and Cohesion categories. To answer this, a study was undertaken in the academic years 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 among STEM undergraduate students in the National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia. The study involved two groups of students (36 students in each): the group that attended regular IELTS preparation classes and the other that, in addition to regular classes, attended debate classes where among other things Toulmin’s argument structure was taught. At the beginning and end of the experiment both groups submitted essays that were analysed according to IELTS rubrics for Task Response and Coherence and Cohesion, and the presence or absence of the elements of Toulmin’s argument structure. In addition, the essays were assessed by an independent IELTS teacher. An independent-samples t-test and Levene’s test were utilised to determine the significance of the collected data. The findings revealed that, on average, the students of the experimental group scored well in Task Response and Coherence and Cohesion, yet some results were inconsistent, which requires further research.

Spatial inequality can lead to unexpected consequences, especially in large countries like Russia. State officials’ attempts to stop the spread of the coronavirus pandemic led to a national lockdown, which was supposed to dramatically reduce the daily mobility of people and therefore the likelihood of infection. At the same time, the Russian government did not introduce an emergency regime, and the measures to support the population and business were criticized by experts as insufficient. Using daily data on mobility in 308 municipalities in Russia, we examined the unevenness of the decline in the level of mobility depending on the level of wages. The results show that the poorer the municipality, the smaller was the mobility decline, that is, the poorer areas were more vulnerable to the pandemic risks. The work also illustrates the larger amplitude of mobility in rich versus poor areas during the period of exiting from the lockdown.

Games involving virtual worlds are popular in several segments of the population and societies. The online environment facilitates that players from different countries interact in a common virtual world. Virtual worlds involving social and economic interactions are particularly useful to test social and economic theories. Using data from EVE Online, a massive online multi-player game simulating a fantasy galaxy, we analyse the relation between the real-world context in which players live and their in-game behaviour at the country level. We find that in-game aggressiveness to non-player characters is positively related to real-world levels of aggressiveness as measured by the Global Peace Index and the Global Terrorist Index at the country level. The opposite is true for in-game aggressiveness towards other players, which seems to work as a safety valve for real-world player aggressiveness. The ability to make in-game friends is also positively related to real-world levels of aggressiveness in much the same way. In-game trading behaviour is dependent on the macro-economic environment where players live. The unemployment rate and exchange rate make players trade more efficiently and cautiously in-game. Overall, we find evidence that the real-world environment affects in-game behaviour, suggesting that virtual worlds can be used to experiment and test social and economic theories, and to infer real-world behaviour at the country level.

The need for research into the transformation of relationships between primary school stakeholders is caused by the acceleration of social and technological processes in which all agents are involved. Digital platforms functioning in unified information systems become cross-functional where they support managerial and pedagogical innovative solutions. The authors regard digitization as a new space for the poly-subjective relationships within information system development. In the transition to digitization it is important to examine the pedagogical aspects and assess the potential advantages but also consider risks. This study considers one of the significant manifestations of digitization as the transformation of the relationship between the teacher and the learner when the learning process is augmented by some active digital practices. Empirical data was obtained during a large-scale pedagogical experiment within the framework of “Learn to Learn” project focused on primary school learners. The sample included over 2,500 students from 46 schools of different regions of Russia. The experiment started in 2018. The project was based on a digital platform which facilitates the diverse roles of different education process stakeholders. The platform records learners’ step by step actions for further examination. These ‘digital footprints’ are available to the adults – teachers and parents, who accompany the learning process. The data is presented through the lens of the theory of liminality and Vygotsky’s concept of ‘zones of development’ and is accompanied by a comparison with contemporary international research in the field. The paper also considers the concepts of relationship transformation between the teacher and the learner while using digital technologies and analyses of the database. Drawing on the empirical data the research demonstrates the role of digital platforms to compensate for deficiencies in child’s skills and personal growth moving them into the ‘zone of proximal development’.

The Article Studies The Predictive Capabilities Of Qualitative Assessments Of Employment Expectations Obtained From Business Tendency Observations Of Entrepreneurial Activity, Which Are Currently A Widespread Source Of Economic Information Both In National And International Practice. The Study Is Based On Market Surveys Conducted By Rosstat, Which Characterize The Expected Level Of Business Activity In The Segment Of Small Enterprises From The 1st Quarter Of 2008 To The 2nd Quarter Of 2019. The Aim Of The Study Is To Prove The Existence Of A Stable Statistically Significant Relationship Between Predicted Estimates Of Employment With The Dynamics Of Growth Rate Cycles Of The Corresponding Quantitative Statistical Macro-Aggregates In Various Sectors And, Therefore, The Relevance Of Predictive Models Of Employment Change Based On The Results Of Business Surveys. It Is Shown That Entrepreneurial Assessments And Expectations Are Effective Predictive Indicators For Predicting Employment Dynamics In The Short Term (Two To Four Months) And Identifying Turning Points In Employment Dynamics In The Small Sector. Small Business, As One Of The Most Sensitive Segments, Is One Of The First To React To The Current Changes, Which Makes Forecasting In This Segment Especially Important.

The shadow of trade protectionism is hanging over the growth of world economy, affecting both developed and emerging economies. Motivated by anti-globalization rhetoric policymakers in the emerging and transitioning countries are increasingly using trade protectionism and other restrictive measures to shield domestic producers from foreign competition and strengthen own countries’ position in the global trade. Obviously, such interventions have impact on marketing strategies of firms domiciled and hosted in such markets. However, firm’s marketing and brand responses to trade protectionism have not been studied in the prior marketing literature. We aim to address this gap in two empirical studies, which utilize food embargo (as trade protectionist action) imposed by Russian government in 2014 as context of our study. For the first study, we surveyed marketing managers of 178 Russian and international brands and assessed differences in dimensions of brand strategy. We find that owners of the domestic umbrella brands put more emphasize on brand orientation, differentiation, and creation strong image than firms owning foreign brands. Alternatively, brand strategy of the foreign individual product brands focuses more on communicating functional benefits. The second study will adopt natural experiment design and use secondary data (trademark filings, financial information, and consumer attitudinal data) to measure impact of trade protectionism on brand differentiation and extension in a large sample of domestic and foreign firms/brands.

Inflation in advanced economies is low by historical standards but there is no threat of deflation. Slower economic growth is caused by supply-side constraints rather than low inflation. Below-the-target inflation does not damage the reputation of central banks. Thus, central banks should not try to bring inflation back to the targeted level of 2%. Rather, they should revise the inflation target downwards and publicly explain the rationale for such a move. Risks to the independence of central banks come from their additional mandates (beyond price stability) and populist politics.

Since the Euromaidan protests (2013-2014), Ukraine has had two presidents and four governments. In a difficult environment of external aggression, they have initiated various reforms aimed at bringing the country closer to the European Union and boosting growth. Progress has been partial and relies on international backing, with limited domestic appetite for reform.

This paper represents a review of strategic level S&T policies in several leading (mostly OECDmember) countries. How are science and technology leadership being targeted and realized in most developed economies? What are the composition and drivers of such policies? How do the S&T policies and corresponding challenges transform over the last decade? These and some other questions constitute a discussion based on desk research comprising strategic documents, adopted in Germany, Sweden, China, Korea, and Japan. The outcomes provide certain S&T strategic options for further discussion, in terms of both, policy coordination and meeting the future challenges.

The purpose of this article is to analyze the centrifugal tendencies in 17 Autonomous Communities of Spain by demonstrating that certain differences in the configurations of factors have lead to varying degrees of the loss of autonomy. The main conclusion is that for the configurations leading to less autonomy, there is a low level of economic development, a low volume of EU funding, and an absence of local languages as a factor of identity. The cases of Andalusia, Asturias, and Galicia are of particular importance in these configurations. For the configurations that lead to greater autonomy, two patterns are identified. The first group (Catalonia and the Basque Country) demonstrates a link between centrifugal tendencies and three conditions: the existence of regionalist parties in the parliaments of Autonomous Communities (AC), a high level of economic development and a high level of identification with a regional language. The second group of cases (Valencia and the Canary Islands) demonstrates the added importance of funding under the EU regional policy programs for the period from 2014 to 2020. The scientific novelty of the article lies in its analysis of the dynamics of centrifugal tendencies in Spain via crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (csQCA).

Game-theoretic models of learning are hard to study even in the laboratory setting due to econometric and practical concerns (like the limited length of an experimental session). In particular, as the simulations by (Salmon, 2001) show, in a cross-model (or "blind'') testing of several models, the data generated by those models does not correspond to the estimated parameters correctly. Thus, even when the real data generation process is known we cannot distinguish correct models from incorrect ones by looking at the estimates. However, we demonstrate that under the same conditions, models are clearly distinguishable if we compare predictions that the models make instead of comparing the model parameters. We also provide a rationale for why this cross-model predictive quality is a particularly relevant way for improving learning models.

Subsequent search misses refer to the decrease in accuracy of second target detection in dual-target visual search. One of the theoretical explanations of SSM errors is similarity bias – the tendency to search for similar targets and to miss the dissimilar ones. The current study focuses on both perceptual and categorical similarity and their individual roles in SSM. Three experiments investigated the role of perceptual and categorical similarity in subsequent search misses, wherein perceptual and categorical similarity were manipulated separately, and task relevance was controlled. The role of both perceptual and categorical similarity was revealed, however, the categorical similarity had greater impact on second target detection.

Both linguistic (e.g., words, syntax) and extralinguistic (e.g., voice quality) information needs to be considered by interlocutors during linguistic communication. The effects of extralinguistic information on neural sentence processing are particularly poorly understood. Here, we used EEG and passive non-attend design with visual distraction in order to investigate how extralinguistic information affects brain activity during syntactic processing. We collected ERPs while participants listened to Russian pronoun-verb phrases recorded in either male or female voice. We manipulated congruency between the grammatical gender signaled by the verb’s ending and the speaker’s apparent gender. We registered both early and late phrase processing signatures in the incongruent conditions including ELAN (peaking at ~150 ms) and N400. Our data suggest a high degree of automaticity in integrating extralinguistic information during syntactic processing indicating existence of a rapid automatic syntactic integration mechanism sensitive to both linguistic and extralinguistic information.

Communities of practices (CoPs) are groups of people with a common area of expertise or professional practice who interact to exchange, share, and learn from one another. CoPs play a crucial role in distinguishing, memorizing, and exchanging novel effective practices within the organization, enabling the organization to improve its performance. In ―normal‖ circumstances, CoPs rely on channels with high media richness (i.e., personal meetings in informal settings, short- and long-term visits to sister subsidiaries, participation in joint task forces) that transfer tacit knowledge. We demonstrate how it is possible to preserve effective functioning of CoPs using communication channels with lower media richness.

This paper studies the convergence in per capita gross regional products (GRPs) across Russian regions in the period from 1996 to 2017. We estimate growth equations, which are directly derived from a neoclassical growth model, augmented with human capital and migration. To our knowledge, this is the first paper that explicitly applies a neoclassical model to analyze regional convergence in Russia. We also take into account possible spatial effects and do a series of other robustness checks. Our main estimates establish a convergence rate of around 2% per year. While we fail to find any role of human capital for regional economic growth, we find that interregional migration and the interdependencies of the growth of Russian regions contribute to the economic convergence between them.

This research focuses on emancipative value orientations, regional factors and their interaction in determining social capital in Russia. We are especially interested in how the effects vary for formal and informal social capital, measured as different types of civic engagement. Applying multilevel regression modeling on national survey data MegaFOM 2017 and available official statistics, we find that emancipative values significantly increase the probability of taking part in civic activities, yet the effect is larger and more uniform across regions for formal social capital. Contrary to expectations and previous cross-country studies, the moderating effect of emancipative values prevalence is either insignificant or rather unstable and goes in the negative direction. Moreover, other regional resources do not significantly moderate the relation between individual emancipative values preference and social capital. 

How much did the telegraph improve market integration in imperial China? We exploit differences in the timing of telegraph construction in different prefectures in the late 19th to the early 20th centuries to show that telegraph presence in both prefectures decreased the monthly grain price difference by nearly 20%. Also, the telegraph boosted economic development and had a mitigating effect on rice prices when disasters occurred. The effect was also stronger for prefectures less accessible to waterways. Merchants’ trade levels, political connections, human capital, and social capital all played a role in the telegraph’s promotion of market integration.

The article focuses on individual income mobility among Russians in the years 2009–2017, as measured objectively and subjectively. As in previous periods of post-Soviet development, income mobility in Russia remains high. In comparison to member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) , income mobility in Russia is higher, while the level of persistent well-being is lower. Subjective assessments of one’s income situation are even more volatile than objective positions on an income scale, with persistent subjective well-being almost non-existent. Furthermore, subjective mobility does not correlate closely with its objective counterpart. Persistent well-being in terms of objective and subjective income is determined by a combination of class and non-class factors, including, above all, labor market position, dependency burden, and health status. JEL Classification: I3, Z13.

According to UNCTAD, the global number of foreign direct investment projects in manufacturing announced in 2018 reached 8049 (UNCTAD, 2019: 9-10). Although the real number of realized projects will be much smaller in 2020-2021 because of the global fall of foreign direct investments (UNCTAD, 2020: xi) the overall number of newly installed factories will be still counted in thousands. In many developing and emerging markets, especially in South-East Asia, Latin America and Russia, ribbon-cutting ceremonies for new facilities opened by foreign investors are mandatory. We ran a study identifying all videoed ribbon-cutting ceremonies for new facilities opened by foreign investors in Russia in 2012- 2018. Using a detailed analysis of the content of speeches delivered by representative of foreign investors and representative of local authorities at those ceremonies, and information obtained through personal observations and interviews, we were able to discover the surface and deeper level meaning attaching to these ceremonies, to propose the definition of efficient plant-opening ceremonies and to demonstrate how it is possible to amend the design of such ceremonies to increase their effectiveness and also to increase mental coherence between the corporate center and oversea subsidiaries.

This paper aims to assess the role of migration as an adjustment mechanism device to favor convergence across states and regions of Russia. In contrast to previous studies, we use variations in the population of a region as a proxy of its net migration rate and apply spatial econometric methodology in order to distinguish the effect from the neighbouring regions. We provide descriptive statistical evidence showing that Russia has more/less/the same intense migration flows than the USA and EU. The econometric analysis shows that migration flows are sensitive to both regional income and regional unemployment differentials. Nonetheless, we find that internal migration is sensitive to regional unemployment and income differentials of neighbouring regions. Dependent on the welfare, pre- or after-crisis period, income in neighbouring regions can create out- or in-migration flows. The relatively high degree of internal mobility coupled with the low sensitivity of migration flows to the local unemployment rate of distant regions might explain why migration flows tends not to generate convergence, but rather divergence across Russian regions.

State-owned banks tend to increase lending before elections for the purpose of boosting the reelection odds of incumbent politicians. We employ monthly data on individual banks to study whether Russian banks increased their lending before presidential elections during 2004–2019, a period covering four presidential elections. In contrast to the literature, we find that both state-owned and private banks increased their lending before presidential elections. This result stands for all loans, as well as separately for firm and household loans. The pre-election lending surge is followed by a deterioration of loan quality the following year, indicating the lending increase was not driven by higher growth prospects or some positive economic shock. The effect is substantially greater for large banks and banks more involved in lending activities. Our main finding that all types of banks in Russia increase their lending before presidential elections supports the view that the authorities in an electoral autocracy like Russia can influence lending of both private and state-owned banks for political reasons.

We use the nearest neighbour propensity score matching to link dwellings holding Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) in the Italian province of Treviso with information on the socio-economic characteristics of households most likely to inhabit them. We construct a database of 17,405 dwellings for which information on standardized energy needs is matched to data on (potential) inhabitants and their imputed income, based respectively on census records and survey data. Our analysis shows that EPC registers can be exploited to investigate how income and housing conditions affect fuel poverty and to identify municipal areas with higher fuel poverty risk. Our findings highlight that when designing interventions to reduce fuel poverty, policymakers should target households based not only on their income but also on type of heating fuel, and on efficiency and the size of their accommodation.