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Democratization and Barriers to Entry in a Two-Dimensional Voting Model
We propose a simple quality-ladder model with heterogeneous agents differing in their skills and wealth endowment to explain the persistence of barriers to entry in new democracies. In the model agents vote for a rate of redistribution and for the level of barriers to entry, which protect the incumbent firms from competition with new entrants. We show that even if a society democratizes, under certain conditions this leads only to the rise of redistribution, rather than to the elimination of barriers to entry. We show that this argument is particularly relevant for countries with a low level of human capital and high inequality in incomes and in skills.
Keywords: income inequalitymajority votingquality-ladders modelbarriers to entryskills inequalityinstitutional persistence
Publication based on the results of:
Zhuravleva T., Afanasev K., Engelmann J. et al., / Series "SSRN Working Paper Series". 2026.
Extortionary ("harassment") bribery can persist even when widely condemned, consistent with a coordination problem sustained by beliefs about what others do and what others consider acceptable. We study whether a minimal institutional featurethe presence of a third-party monitor empowered to punish-shifts (i) normative expectations about extortion and compliance and (ii) empirical expectations about their prevalence. ...
Added: July 22, 2026
Mishin A., Guerrieri L., Kim J., / Series 2026-042 "Finance and Economics Discussion Series (FEDS)". 2026.
Within narrowly defined industries, the most productive firms produce far more than the least productive from the same inputs, and this dispersion widens in downturns. We build a tractable representative-agent model in which financial frictions—adverse selection and moral hazard—make firms sort endogenously into lenders, strategic defaulters, and producers. As credit conditions vary, the resulting misallocation ...
Added: June 28, 2026
Власов С. А., Nevalennyi M., Сафиулин Р. Р. et al., / Банк России. Серия Аналитическая записка "Материалы Банка России". 2026.
В аналитической записке обсуждается долгосрочно устойчивый уровень цены на российскую нефть. Это тот уровень, к которому цена нефти, вероятнее всего, будет тяготеть в долгосрочной перспективе. Потребность в его определении возникает по нескольким причинам. Во-первых, цена на нефть остается одним из ключевых экономических показателей российской экономики, определяющих экспорт, обменный курс рубля, прибыль, доходы и расходы бюджета, ...
Added: June 27, 2026
Глазова А. М., Nevalennyi M., Синяков А. А., / Банк России. Серия Препринты Банка России "Серия докладов об экономических исследованиях". 2025. № 154.
The paper proposes a graphical model of a small open economy. The dynamics of the graphical model is then illustrated using impulse responses from the corresponding formal semi-structural model (QPM model). The authors have several goals in preparing this description of the graphical macroeconomic model. The first goal of the paper is to present an adapted ...
Added: June 27, 2026
Mishin A., Guerrieri L., Canzoneri M. et al., / Series 2026-042 "Finance and Economics Discussion Series (FEDS)". 2026.
Added: June 27, 2026
Bogatyrev R., Sandomirskaia M., / NRU Higher School of Economics. Series EC "Economics". 2026. No. 19(1).
This work develops a tractable model of price competition in fragmented markets where consumers consider both local and distant varieties, with cross-regional purchases subject to stochastic costs. Global competition and full localization emerge as polar cases; hybrid competition is not merely intermediate and exhibits distinctive features such as an endogenous price ceiling and non-monotonic entry ...
Added: June 11, 2026
Kravtsova M., Musaev A. U., Welzel C., / Series "SSRN Working Paper Series". 2026.
Elaborating on Welzel et al.'s "Cool Water Theory," our study zooms into the more limited (albeit still varied) framework conditions of Russia's huge territory. Within Russia's confines, we examine how the combination of moderately cool seasons with steady rain (i.e., Cool Water) affects sub-national areas' contemporary societal progress in two modernization indicators: material prosperity in ...
Added: June 3, 2026
Синяков А. А., Зверева В., Шелованова Т. И., / Центральный банк Российской Федерации. Серия 132 / 2024 "Серия докладов об экономических исследованиях". 2024. № 132.
At the end of 2023, Russia updated its Strategy for Improving Financial Literacy and Developing Financial Culture Until 2030. Unlike the previous strategy, the current strategic goals include not only financial literacy but also financial culture. ‘Culture’ is normative and socially preferred behaviour. The updated strategy brings into focus the relationship between financial literacy and responsible financial behaviour. To explore this relationship, the authors rely on data from the All-Russian Survey of Consumer Finance (2020 and 2022). Socially ...
Added: June 1, 2026
Vorchik A., / SSRN. Серия Social Science Research Network "Social Science Research Network". 2026.
This work is devoted to a theoretical explanation of the Easterlin paradox, according to which long-term economic growth does not make average level of people's happiness increasing. By happiness, we mean the intensity of emotions people experience while comparing their new income with its expected value, or the target income with its original value. In the first case, ...
Added: May 31, 2026
Ustyuzhanin V., / Series Econometrics "arxiv". 2026.
This paper proposes Covariate-Balanced Weighted Stacked Difference-in-Differences (CBWSDID), a design-based extension of weighted stacked DID for settings in which untreated trends may be conditionally rather than unconditionally parallel. The estimator separates within-subexperiment design adjustment from across-subexperiment aggregation: matching or weighting improves treated-control comparability within each stacked subexperiment, while the corrective stacked weights of Wing et ...
Added: April 3, 2026
Vorchik A., / Social Science Research Network. Серия SSRN Working Paper Series "SSRN Working Paper Series". 2026.
This article is devoted to the phenomenon of intrinsic motivation, to understand which two models are proposed. We study how positive/negative intrinsic motivation to work (experienced utility) affects worker's individual labour supply (model I) and the amount of effort they exert (model II). In model I, we use intrinsic motivation to explain the positive/negative slope ...
Added: March 15, 2026
Vorchik A., Мамышев М. А., / Series Social Science Research Network "Social Science Research Network". 2025.
In this paper, we develop a formal mathematical model aimed to explain the Dunning-Kruger effect that beginners systematically overestimate their own competence in various fields of knowledge and activity. We argue that the Dunning-Kruger effect arises from the emotional nature of confidence combined with unknown unknowns that it simply can not take into account due ...
Added: February 11, 2026
Musaev A. U., Vorchik A., / Series Social Science Research Network "Social Science Research Network". 2026.
This paper attempts to model the evolutionary theory of modernization and democratization. The model reflects the key provisions of R. Inglehart and C. Welzel's theory and provides a microfoundation for the adaptation of subjective values to the objective importances of the survival factors and the structure of the labour markets from the perspective of evolutionary ...
Added: February 10, 2026
Antsygina A., Teteryatnikova M., Tremewan J. C. et al., / Series "SSRN Working Paper Series". 2025.
Many competitive environments allow for a third party to be indirectly involved by supporting one or both sides in the conflict. Such support can come from trade partners, colleagues, or allies, who can in turn benefit from a supported party's success. We use theory and an experiment to investigate how support relationships develop endogenously in ...
Added: January 31, 2026
Akhmedova A., / Series "SSRN Working Paper Series". 2026.
The study explores a psychological phenomenon of inaction inertia-avoiding action after missing a more favourable opportunity. Unlike action inertia (e.g.,sunk costs effect), inaction inertia has been less studied, particularly in economic contexts. Considering the reference dependent nature of the phenomenon, I build on the work of Kőszegi and Rabin (2006) to examine how past experiences ...
Added: January 23, 2026
Kuchumova (Paramonova) Y. A., Ozhegova A., Зорина К. С., / Series SSRN "Available at SSRN 6108727". 2026.
Simplified tax regimes with explicit eligibility thresholds are a common tool which reduces tax burden but distorts firms’ behavior, creating local bunching just below the threshold. However, we show that when firms have access to business splitting their responses extend far beyond the local margin. Our model demonstrates that splitting reduces local bunching but amplifies ...
Added: January 21, 2026
Kuchumova (Paramonova) Y. A., Кумачева С. Ш., / Series SSRN "Available at SSRN 5312100". 2025.
In recent years, an emerging body of empirical research has shown that tax audits, in addition to recovering unpaid taxes (direct effect), increase future tax compliance (indirect or dynamic effect). This literature also suggests that updating expectations induced by audit experience plays an important role in explaining this indirect effect. However, exactly how taxpayers form ...
Added: January 21, 2026
Kuchumova (Paramonova) Y. A., / Series SSRN "Available at SSRN 5277500". 2025.
While the emerging empirical literature shows that collateral tax sanctions (CTSs) - such as driver’s license suspensions or passport denials - appear to be effective instruments to enforce tax debt collection, there are still few theoretical arguments to explain why. In this paper, I model enforcement of tax debt collection and provide a new rationale for why it could ...
Added: January 21, 2026
Dobrynskaya V. V., Tomtosov A., Речмедина С., / NRU HSE. Series WP BRP 60/FE/2017 "SERIES: FINANCIAL ECONOMICS". 2025.
We study the application of factor investing in the market for real estate (REITs). The analysis of traditional factor strategies, such as momentum, value, size and profitability, reveals their unstable and atypical behavior in comparison to the equity market, however, there is a strong momentum effect in the factor strategies. We propose a new dynamic ...
Added: January 21, 2026
Doğan B., Kazemzadeh E., Ghosh S. et al., Sustainable Development 2026 Vol. 34 No. S2 P. 877–907
This study investigates the impact of green entrepreneurial innovations, energy diversification, economic complexity, economic growth, energy intensity, and government spending on income inequality in seven emerging Asian economies from 1998 to 2022. Using advanced methods such as the quantile-on-quantile, cross quantilogram, and wavelet-quantile regression, we reveal that eco-innovation and energy diversification play crucial roles in ...
Added: November 11, 2025
Ibragimov R., Kattuman P., Skrobotov A., Econometric Reviews 2025 Vol. 44 No. 4 P. 384–415
Empirical analyses of income and wealth inequality often face the difficulty that the observations are heterogeneous, heavy-tailed, or correlated in some unknown fashion. This article focuses on applications of the recently developed computationally simple t-statistic based robust inference approach to the analysis of inequality. Two regions can be compared in terms of inequality as follows: the ...
Added: October 30, 2025
Zasimova L. S., Вопросы статистики 2024 Т. 31 № 6 С. 35–48
The study analyses the dynamics of economic inequality in Russia in 2006–2022 and the contribution of the social transfer system to income distribution in society. The study examines the distribution of recipients of social benefits by decile income groups, the amount of social transfers and its share in household incomes with different income levels. To identify the ...
Added: December 20, 2024
Alisa Shishkina, Cyril Gbeti, Journal of Asian and African Studies 2025 Vol. 60 No. 6 P. 3859–3878
Sub-Saharan Africa in general and West Africa in particular are ranked as one of the most unequal regions of the world. This study aims at investigating the direct effect of inequality on economic growth and human development (HD). To assess this effect, we use three variables and rigorous estimation techniques. The indirect effect of inequality ...
Added: November 11, 2024
Martynova E., , in: Право на пути к устойчивому развитию: материалы международной научной конференции студентов и молодых ученых. Москва, РУДН, 14 мая 2022 г., В трех томах, том 2Т. 2.: М.: Издательство РУДН, 2022. P. 119–125.
The paper aims to identify and propose policy tools to address the income inequality increase with instrumentality of international economic law (IEL). I begin with rather general but important questions of (i) why rising inequality causes concern, (ii) whether there is a need for government interventions to combat inequality, and (iii) is (and should) within-country ...
Added: April 7, 2024