Dehkans,Diversification and Dependencies: Rural Transformation in Post‐Soviet Uzbekistan

This paper describes how political and economic transition has affected the system of agricultural production in Khorezm, Uzbekistan in terms of economic practices and relationships. Based on recent fieldwork, the paper argues that the local agricultural economy is a hybrid economy, where production for market, quasi‐market and subsistence merge into and co‐constitute one another. In order to keep the system going, and to make up for the uncertainties in the formal context of production, the relation between new private fermer and the peasant (dehkan) households is of particular importance. This relation resembles neo‐patrimonial patron–client relations, which are both personal and informal while also being based on formal, contractual relations. The relations are asymmetric and based on the limited and unevenly distributed resources. The division of power is unequal but not fixed, due to the ongoing transition of the economic system.     

The Effectiveness of Unconventional Monetary Policy at the Zero Lower Bound: A Cross‐Country Analysis

This paper assesses the macroeconomic effects of unconventional monetary policies by estimating a panel vector autoregression (VAR) with monthly data from eight advanced economies over a sample spanning the period since the onset of the global financial crisis. It finds that an exogenous increase in central bank balance sheets at the zero lower bound leads to a temporary rise in economic activity and consumer prices. The estimated output effects turn out to be qualitatively similar to the ones found in the literature on the effects of conventional monetary policy, while the impact on the price level is weaker and less persistent. Individual country results suggest that there are no major differences in the macroeconomic effects of unconventional monetary policies across countries, despite the heterogeneity of the measures that were taken.