Adult mortality in Russia

This paper studies the determinants of Russian adult mortality controlling for both individual and household heterogeneity. We employ survival analysis and utilize 12 rounds of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey spanning a 14‐year period. Although confirming the crucial role of excessive alcohol consumption in shaping adult mortality risks in Russia, the results are original in several other respects. We find empirical support for the importance of relative status measured in non‐income terms in shaping mortality hazards. We find evidence of the influence of labour market behaviour, and sectoral and occupational mobility in particular, on longevity. The detrimental role of smoking to health is found to be comparable with the role of excess alcohol consumption, which is novel in the Russian context where the influence of smoking is typically downplayed in comparison with alcoholism. Finally, we find no micro evidence in support of the political economy view based on a positive correlation between low alcohol prices and high mortality rates found in regional‐level data.     

Encouraging skill development: Evidence from public-private partnerships in education in Russia’s regions

How and when are governments able to encourage firms and schools to work together to develop workers’ skills? Upgrading the quality of human capital in the workforce is widely seen as a key challenge faced by countries looking to escape the “middle income trap.” Growing attention has been paid to public-private partnerships (PPP) between individual firms and schools as a powerful tool for meeting this challenge, but key facilitators of PPP thought crucial in existing studies – strong, independent employers’ associations and labor unions – are often missing in such settings. To explore the emergence of PPP in skill development in the developing world, we draw on recent reform experiences in Russia’s regions that have led to a surge in complex, costly forms of PPP despite weakly developed business associations and unions. We argue that variation in the administrative capacity of regional governments and their political accountability explains this surge. Strong administrative capacity reassures all parties that regional authorities can monitor their counterparties’ compliance with agreements, while political accountability creates incentives for authorities to do so. We test our argument using original data on the existence and content of firm-school partnerships across all Russia’s regions for 2013.     

Economic reform and mortality in the former Soviet Union: A study of the suicide epidemic in the 1990s

Male suicide rates in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and the Baltic countries increased substantially in the early 1990s and are now the highest in the world. To what extent is this suicide epidemic explained by the macroeconomic instability experienced by these countries in that period? Fixed effects regressions across 22 transition economies indicate that male suicide rates are highly sensitive to the state of the macroeconomy, suggesting that the steep and prolonged declines in GDP in the western countries of the former Soviet Union may have been partly to blame for the suicide epidemic. Evidence also indicates that the general adult male mortality crisis in the region had a ‘feedback’ effect on suicide rates, with the loss of a spouse or friend – or declining life expectancy itself – contributing to rising suicide rates. Female suicide rates, in contrast, are insensitive to the state of the macroeconomy and are more strongly related to alcohol consumption.     

Nominal rigidities and retail price dispersion in Canada over the twentieth century

Abstract We introduce a new data set on over 230,000 monthly prices for 10 goods in 50 Canadian cities over the 40‐year period from 1910 to 1950. This information, coupled with previously published price information from the late twentieth century, allows us to present one of the first comprehensive views of nominal rigidities and retail price dispersion over the past 100 years. We find that nominal rigidities have been conditioned upon prevailing rates of inflation with a greater frequency of price changes occurring in the 1920s and the 1970s. Additionally, the process of retail market integration has followed a U‐shaped trajectory with many domestic markets being better integrated – as measured by the average dispersion of retail prices – at mid‐century than in the 1990s. We also consider the linkages between nominal rigidities and price dispersion, finding results consistent with present‐day data.     

PRICE SETTING PRACTICES IN GREECE: EVIDENCE FROM A SMALL‐SCALE FIRM‐LEVEL SURVEY

The paper documents the price setting practices followed by some 400 or so firms operating in Greece. Survey replies reveal a low percentage of firms changing prices with frequency higher than annual and staggering of price changes during the year. As to firms’ reactions to unexpected shocks, prices appear to adjust sluggishly to cost shocks with asymmetries in price adjustment across positive and negative shocks. Adjustments to increases in costs appear speedier than those to reductions in demand. The data confirm a result found for other countries: the existence of cross‐sectional variations in price setting strategies and in the extent to which prices are adjusted in reaction to unexpected shocks. The results suggest a positive association between, on the one hand, product market competition and, on the other hand, state‐dependent pricing, frequent price changes and the likelihood of a price adjustment following an adverse demand shock.     

国际农产品价格如何影响了中国农产品价格?

本文使用月度数据考察国际农产品价格是否影响中国农产品价格,以及影响程度和可能的影响机制。在控制了其他影响因素的条件下,本文证实了国际农产品价格对国内价格具有经济意义上的显著影响,各种农产品的国内价格对相同产品国际价格的反应程度存在较大差异,玉米、大米和大豆价格的国际价格弹性介于0.20到0.36之间,小麦的国际价格弹性为0.05左右,国内外农产品市场间高度的整合关系主要是通过国际贸易建立的。中国在未来为保持粮价稳定需要加大对农业的扶持力度,加强国内农产品储备,合理地对农产品贸易进行管制,建立农产品价格预警机制,并通过财政补贴等手段平抑因国际价格波动而带来的国内农产品价格上涨。     

Asymmetric responses of house prices to changes in the mortgage interest rate: evidence from the Australian capital cities

We examine the dynamic and asymmetric responses of house prices to changes in mortgage interest rates in Australia from January 1995 to November 2017. We propose a threshold intervention model to distinguish between the effects of positive versus negative changes in the standard variable interest rate. The results indicate that rising interest rates decrease house prices more than falling interest rates increase them. For example, a 1% decrease in interest rates increases Sydney’s house prices by 0.7%, whereas a 1% increase leads to a 1.5% fall. The findings also support the view that when interest rates are on the rise, house prices in larger capital cities such as Sydney and Melbourne fall faster than in their smaller counterparts. Our findings imply that a rise in interest rates may thus lead to sharp, fast and significant falls in house prices, a phenomenon which will not simply be a symmetric unwinding of earlier price increases.     

Are consumers forward looking? Evidence from used iPhones

This study examines the impact of planned obsolescence – the introduction of new models to make existing models obsolete – on secondary markets for mobile phones. Using data of over 320,000 used iPhones listings on Thailand’s largest online marketplace, we document that iPhone prices decrease with age, around 2.8–3.2% for each passing month. We find no evidence that the price decline accelerates after launches of new models (i.e. obsolescence), lending support to the view that consumer in durable goods markets are rational and forward looking.     

Consumer welfare effects of increased food and energy prices

In this study, the authors evaluated how much price changes in food and energy – two basic living expenditures competing for consumers’ budgets – would affect consumer welfare. We first estimated a US complete demand system to quantify the interdependent demand relationships among 11 categories of consumption expenditures. Among the estimates, the own price elasticities of both food and energy are relatively inelastic, a finding that explains the dynamics of the recent soaring food and energy prices. The estimated demand elasticities were then incorporated into the measurement of Hicksian compensating variation to analyse the consumer welfare effects of price changes in food and energy. The results indicated that an increase in food and energy prices would increase compensated expenditures or incur a substantial consumer welfare loss, creating an especially heavy burden for low income households.     

Self-employment,financial development,and well-being: Evidence from China,Russia, and Ukraine

This study investigates the association between financial development and entrepreneurs’ well-being in China, Ukraine, and Russia. We find that Chinese and Russian entrepreneurs have a higher level of well-being, while Ukrainian self-employed individuals have more dissatisfaction. The link between financial development and the utility of entrepreneurs varies as well. The utility differences between the self-employed and paid workers in Russia reduce with financial development and the effect is stronger for job satisfaction. However, financial development barely correlates with Ukrainian entrepreneurs’ happiness while having no correlation with life satisfaction of Chinese self-employed. Further investigation suggests that the financial development – entrepreneurial utility association works through both monetary and non-monetary channels.     

Defence and Promotion of Desired State Identity in Russia’s Strategic Narrative

This article examines how the Russian state promotes and protects its preferred self-identity, using the conceptual framework of ‘strategic narrative’. Nation branding practices, including state-funded ‘mega-projects’ like the Sochi Olympics, have contributed to the narrative by characterising Russia as a welcoming, attractive destination. However, a more salient feature of Russia’s strategic narrative is intense ‘anti-Western’ and ‘anti-American’ political and media discourse, formulated to defend against rival, threatening narratives projected from other countries. Through analysis of official statements and state television content, this article demonstrates how determination to protect ‘great power’ and ‘European’ identities underlay Russia’s strategic narrative in 2014. It considers responses which the narrative has prompted, arguing that desired results in domestic reception have been achieved at the expense of unsatisfactory results internationally. Heavy-handed attacks on the identities of other states boost collective self-esteem among Russian citizens, but they fail to produce – and arguably obstruct – desired responses among foreign audiences.     

An Empirical Investigation of the Ratchet Effect in the OECD, 1985–2009

This paper employs a reduced form structuralist model of inflation in the OECD over the period 1985–2009 to find out whether domestic prices respond symmetrically to rising and falling import prices. We find that the response is asymmetrical: domestic prices rise when import prices rise but they do not fall when import prices fall. Our finding thus confirms the presence of a ratchet effect in the sample countries during the sample period, and implies that factors – such as exchange rate fluctuations and movements in tariff rates – that influence import prices tend to be inflationary.     

On the Effects of Asset Purchase Programs on Emerging Stock Markets

ABSTRACT

It is well documented that there has been a relationship between stock markets and unconventional monetary policies. However, most research concentrates on developed economies and analyzes the effects of shocks from such polices on stock prices. This paper is different from this research in that we investigate the impact of surprises from the Fed’s and the ECB’s announcements on the stock returns and volatility in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries using GARCH models. We find that a positive surprise associated with a fall in the U.S. Treasury yield causes an increase in ADX returns. We show significant effects of the ECB’s shocks on price returns. In particular, announcement that induces a decline in yield spreads in Italian sovereign bonds leads to higher stock prices. We also document a significant impact of surprises both by the Fed and ECB on volatility. However, the estimates are mixed. We note that volatility went down in response to the ECB’s policies, while they increased after the Fed’s asset purchases. Finally, when we distinguish surprises by their sign, the GJR-GARCH model estimates indicate that the effect on the volatility which is, perhaps surprisingly, symmetric for both types of news.     

A comparative analysis of the impact of oil prices on oil-rich emerging economies in the Pacific Rim

This paper examines the relationship between raw materials prices and economic growth through two channels, the terms of trade (ToT) and energy efficiency (EF), in three emerging Pacific Rim economies, Russia, Indonesia and Malaysia. We demonstrate positive relationships between changes in output and oil prices and between changes in GDP and energy efficiency (EF). We examine the impact of oil prices on output growth through the ToT and EF channels. The effect of oil prices on ToT in Russia and Malaysia is positive but negative in Indonesia. Oil prices have a positive effect on EF in all three countries.     

Price effects of independent transmission system operators in the United States electricity market

In 1996, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) sought to “remove impediments to competition in the wholesale bulk power marketplace and to bring more efficient, lower cost power to the Nation’s electricity consumers” through a series of market rules. A product of these rules was the establishment of regional transmission organizations (RTOs) and independent system operators (ISOs) charged with facilitating equal access to the transmission grid for electricity suppliers. Whether these changes in market structure have succeeded in achieving FERC’s goal to provide “lower cost power to the Nation’s electricity consumers” remains an open question. This paper utilizes a panel data set of the 48 contiguous United States and a treatment effects model in first differences to determine whether there have been changes in delivered electric prices as a result of the establishment of ISOs and RTOs. To avoid the confounding effects of electric restructuring, the model is estimated with the full panel data set, and then again without the states that have restructured their electric markets. This estimation shows that electricity prices fall approximately 4.8 % in the first 2 years of an ISO’s operation and that this result is statistically significant. However, this result is dependent on the presence of states that restructured their electricity markets. When these restructured states are removed from the data set the price effects of RTOs become indistinguishable from zero. The paper concludes that rate agreements are the principal source of the observed decrease in prices and that RTOs have not had the desired effect on electricity prices.     

Cocoa Production Output Response to Smallholder Price Speculation: Case Study of Cote d’Ivoire and Nigeria

The paper attempts to analyze the variation in cocoa output response to international price fluctuations in two major cocoa producing countries: Cote d’Ivoire and Nigeria. The study employs a Nerlovian price expectation technique as in Ogundari (2015), and a Panel VAR model to empirically estimate changes in cocoa output using time series and an unbalanced panel dataset covering a period from 1967 to 2009. The findings indicate and in accordance with economic theory of demand and supply, that cocoa output is an inverse function of the expected prices of competing agricultural commodities like green coffee. When there is an expected price increase of cocoa, cocoa output rises. Simultaneously, if the anticipated price of coffee rises, through a cocoa–coffee substitution mechanism, smallholder farmers shift their focus to coffee production leading to a fall in cocoa output. A Granger causality test was utilized to investigate causality between cocoa output, and cocoa and coffee prices. In the case of Cote d’Ivoire, while there is only a correlation between cocoa output and price, in the case of Nigeria there was none. In addition, the study shows no unidirectional or bidirectional causality between the intervening variables and cocoa output.     

Strategic Choice of the Price Structure and Entry Deterrence Under Price Cap Regulation

This paper shows that a price‐capped firm under the threat of entry in some of the markets it serves can strategically manipulate its price structure to deter entry. In doing so, the regulated firm uses the price cap constraint as a commitment device to an aggressive pricing behaviour in case of entry. A (dynamic) price cap generally entails that the prices allowed today are a function of the previous‐period prices and that the tighter is the constraint on each price, the larger is the quantity sold of this good in the previous period. Hence, the regulated firm may strategically choose its price structure before entry to place a tighter regulatory control on the prices set in the (potentially) competitive markets and to make it optimal to charge in these markets – in case of entry – prices so low that entry is unprofitable.     

How history matters for student performance. lessons from the Partitions of Poland

This paper examines the effect on current student performance of the 19th century Partitions of Poland among Austria, Prussia and Russia. Using a regression discontinuity design, I show that student test scores are 0.6 standard deviations higher on the Austrian side of the former Austrian-Russian border, despite the modern similarities of the three regions. However, I do not find evidence for differences across the Prussian-Russian border. Using a theoretical model and indirect evidence, I argue that the Partitions have persisted through their impact on social norms toward local schools. Nevertheless, the persistent effect of Austria is puzzling, given the historical similarities of the Austrian and Prussian education systems. I argue that the differential legacy of Austria and Prussia originates from the Austrian Empire’s policy to promote Polish identity in schools and the Prussian Empire’s efforts to Germanize the Poles through education.     

Stock market crash of 2008: an empirical study of the deviation of share prices from company fundamentals

The aim of this study is to investigate quantitatively whether share prices deviated from company fundamentals in the stock market crash of 2008. For this purpose, we use a large database containing the balance sheets and share prices of 7796 worldwide companies for the period 2004–2013. We develop a panel regression model using three financial indicators – dividends per share, cash flow per share and book value per share – as explanatory variables for share price. We then estimate individual company fundamentals for each year by removing the time fixed effects from the two-way fixed effects model, which we identified as the best of the panel regression models.

Based on these results, we analyse the market anomaly quantitatively using the divergence rate – the rate of the deviation of share price from a company’s fundamentals. We find that share prices on average were overvalued in the period from 2005 to 2007 and were undervalued significantly in 2008, when the global financial crisis occurred. Share prices were equivalent to the fundamentals on average in the subsequent period. Our empirical results clearly demonstrate that the worldwide stock market fluctuated excessively in the time period before and just after the global financial crisis of 2008.     

房地产价格、泰勒规则与宏观经济调控——基于2000-2010年我国宏观经济数据的检验

央行是否应该针对房地产价格制定货币政策进行调控,一直是学者们关注的焦点,但研究结果仍存在分歧。基于2000-2010年我国季度经济数据,对比检验了融入房地产价格的泰勒规则与标准泰勒规则对我国制定货币政策调控宏观经济的适用性。实证结果表明,依据标准泰勒规则所制定的利率政策,可以降低央行损失函数值,提高利率政策有效性。这一结果意味着,在房地产价格波动不影响物价稳定和经济增长的情况下,央行不应针对房地产价格进行调控。也就是说,央行需考虑房地产价格波动与通货膨胀和产出之间的相关关系,判断其对政策目标的潜在影响,制定利率政策对宏观经济进行调控。