System and management problems of the electric power industry’s development in Russia

The current management system of Russia??s electric power industry??s development, including industry regulatory documents and mechanisms by which generating capacities are built up, is considered in the article. The management problems of the industry??s development are analyzed. Ways of its further improvement are suggested.     

Energy consumption by Russia’s population and service industry in the context of global trends

This paper analyzes energy consumption by population and service industry in developed countries and Russia in 1990–2005. The main global trends in energy consumption by population and service industry are shown. The compliance of Russia’s energy consumption figures to these trends is determined. The results of predictive estimates of the dependence of per capita energy consumption by population and service industry on the level of economic development are presented.     

Does transfer of control rights and private benefits of control increase efficiency? Evidence from China’s privatization of the SOE’s

This study assesses China’s overall privatization efficiency from the perspective of private benefits of control. Results suggest that there is no statistically significant change in the firm’s performance after the transfer. However, ROE is negatively correlated with the magnitude of block premiums at the point of purchase. The research also finds that the average private benefit of a private controlling shareholder is significantly higher than that of a state-controlling shareholder. Obtaining private benefits of control is often the private buyers’ main acquisition motive. However, private benefit undermines the future corporate performance; therefore, lowering the private benefits may help improve the efficiency of privatization. As of now, privatization by means of controlling right transfer among listed companies is inefficient in China.     

Russia’s salt industry: Problems of development

The paper describes the current situation in the salt industry. It points to the inadmissibly high and expanding market share of imported salt products despite the country’s own colossal resource base and the domestic enterprises’ huge unused capacities. It has been shown that OAO Russian Railroads (OAO RZhD) will economically benefit due to its reasonable policy of selective reduction of the railroad shipment tariffs for salt for domestic producers due to the inevitable growth of the country’s own salt output.     

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: assessment of the humanitarian,economic, and financial impact in the short and medium term

What are the economic effects of the Ukraine war for Ukraine, Russia, and the rest of Europe? In this study, the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (wiiw) sheds light on the immediate consequences on the one hand, but also on the medium-term structural changes caused by the largest armed conflict in Europe since the Second World War. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has triggered a humanitarian crisis. Pre-war, almost 19 m people lived in those regions that are currently directly affected. Refugee inflows to the rest of Europe are likely to be at least three times greater than in 2015/2016. As Black Sea ports come under Russian assault, Ukraine has lost its ability to sell more than half of its exports, primarily agricultural commodities and metals. Western financial support will become ever more important as the war continues. Turning to Russia, sanctions will have a very serious impact on that country’s economy and financial sector. Despite being partly hamstrung by the fact that a large proportion of Russian reserve assets are frozen in the EU and G7, the central bank managed to stabilise financial markets by a combination of confidence-building and hard-steering measures: capital controls, FX controls, regulatory easing for financial institutions, and a doubling of the key policy rate. The medium-term and long-term outlook is negative. As a result of the war and the sanctions, the rest of Europe faces a surge in already high inflation; this will weigh on real incomes and will depress economic growth. Many European countries rely heavily on Russia for oil and gas imports: import shares are over 75% in Czechia, Latvia, Hungary, Slovakia, and Bulgaria with respect to natural gas; Slovakia, Lithuania, Poland, and Finland with respect to oil and petroleum; and Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Denmark, Lithuania, Greece, and Bulgaria with respect to solid fuels. Aside from energy, the fallout via trade for the rest of Europe is likely to be small. Non-energy trade and investment links between Russia and many European countries have declined in importance since 2013. There are four main areas of structural change and lasting impact for the EU (and Europe more broadly) as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. First, the EU will get more serious about defence. Second, the green transition will gather pace. Third, broader Eurasian economic integration will be unwound. And fourth, the EU accession prospects for countries in Southeast Europe could (and should) improve.

     

Changes in women’s empowerment in the household,women’s diet diversity,and their relationship against the background of COVID-19 in southern Bangladesh

The COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh, associated public health measures, and people’s reactions were projected to have caused job losses among women, a decline in women’s empowerment and reduced women’s diet diversity. Using a November 2020 telephone survey to re-interview adult female respondents of a November 2019 in-person survey, contrary to expectations we find that more women found than lost jobs, and women’s diet diversity increased over the year partly marked by the COVID-19 pandemic. We did not find evidence of a decline in women’s involvement in food purchase decisions, nor women’s autonomy over use of household income. The change in women’s outside employment is neither statistically related to changes in women’s involvement in food purchase decisions, changes women’s autonomy over use of household income, nor changes in women’s diet diversity. Change in women’s involvement in food purchase decisions is positively related with change in women’s diet diversity and change in women’s autonomy over income use is negatively related with change in women’s diet diversity.     

China’s rule of law in New Era: the rise of regulation and formalism

ABSTRACT

China’s financial development and economic growth is achieved under weak legal institutions. The literature attributes this counterexample of law–finance–growth nexus to (a) alternative mechanisms in China such as incentives, reputation and relationships and (b) a well-functioning xinfang system with common law features. In recent years, China has made increasing efforts to strengthen its rule of law. The Communist Party of China (CPC) has taken the lead by launching a far-reaching campaign against corruption, establishing a system of inspection tours, and promulgating a large number of regulations. We argue that using regulations to complement laws is effective: CPC has enough bureaucratic prowess to crack down on corruption whereas the courts are subject to subversion by powerful interests. We also discuss the drawbacks of this approach: regulations aiming at ex ante control of corruption substantially increase procedural formalism and limit the discretion of local governments and state-owned enterprises.     

Global competition and cooperation in the electronics industry: the case of X-ray equipment, 1900–1970

The electronics industry is often regarded by scholars as an example of a sector driven by endless technological innovation and major competition between a few large companies, thus embodying the common view whereby the free market leads firms to innovate. On the other hand, some business historians have also emphasised that, since the beginning of the twentieth century, most of these companies were engaged in various international cartel agreements. The business and economic history literature on this industry reveals a clear-cut divide between the inter-war years and the post-war era. In this paper, however, we argue that technical and commercial cooperation between large electronics companies continued in various forms despite the spread of anti-trust policies after 1945. In this case study, we explore the global X-ray equipment industry from its beginnings around 1900 to the advent of the CT scanner in the early 1970s. The paper focuses on Siemens and Philips, the two largest manufacturers of radiological equipment. It demonstrates that both companies pursued their commercial and technical cooperation at least until the 1970s, although it was much less overt as during the interwar years.     

The impact of regional trade agreements on the quality of export products in China’s manufacturing industry

In recent years, under the risks of anti-globalization trend and uncertainty of trade war, countries have been entering into bilateral and multilateral regional trade agreements (RTAs). This study constructs both theoretical and empirical models to examine whether these RTAs can improve the quality of exported products among Chinese manufacturing enterprises, thereby expanding on a new policy research area that focuses on improving Chinese export quality or import quality of RTAs trade partners from China. The study finds that RTAs’ clause quantity (measured by clause coverage rate) and clause quality (measured by law commitment rate) play different roles. The former can generate “spaghetti bowl” effect but the latter can significantly promote export quality for Chinese manufacturers. The study also finds that RTAs can promote balanced development among the various regions in China and that a new generation of binding clauses in the “WTO-X field” with more new clauses strongly affects efforts to improve the quality of products exported to high and upper-middle income markets. We also find that for most industries, signing high-quality RTAs helps to improve export product quality, but there are no effect for some industries with laggard or special advanced technology.     

Technological change and the decline of the traditional pulp and paper industry in Norway, 1950–1980

Abstract

With its breakthrough around 1870, the Norwegian pulp and paper industry came to be a principal driving force in the industrialization of the country, retaining a leading position in the national economy until the mid-1950s. From that time onwards, however, the industry has experienced a relative as well as an absolute decline. Of great importance in this decline has been the fact that new technology made possible the use of all kinds of wood, which, internationally, led to a major relocation and restructuring of the industry. Technological change is, however, not sufficient to explain the decline of the Norwegian industry. National social characteristics as well as certain structural features of the industry also deserve attention.     

Analysis of the Changes in the Growth of Japan’s Direct Investment in and Trade with China

I. Relative Drop in the Proportion of Japan’s Direct Investment in ChinaCompared with the United States and the EU, Japan’s direct investment in China hasslowed down since 1999, with the relative real size of investment dropping. Table 1 shows that Japan’s direct investment in China was slightly more than that of the USA and much more than that of the EU before 1998. But in the ensuing five years from 1999 onward, the situation was reversed. The US direct investment in China rose …     

Structural changes in Ukraine’s economy: The effect of internal and external factors and the consequences of the global crisis

The article examines the tendencies and internal and external factors of structural changes in the economy of Ukraine. A formalized procedure is suggested for the estimation of structural changes, and the results of international comparisons are presented. The effect of the crisis on structural changes is analyzed, and strategic guidelines for postcrisis development are stated.     

Branch expansion and banking efficiency in Sri Lanka’s post‐conflict era

This study assesses changes in the technical efficiency of commercial banks in Sri Lanka following the end of armed conflict in 2009. The weighted aggregate-efficiency technique, based on a group-wise heterogeneous subsampling bootstrap approach, is employed to compare efficiency levels during the periods 2007–2009 and 2010–2013. This technique allows for heterogeneity in environmental and regulatory conditions between the two periods while assuming homogeneity within each period. Our results reveal that the banking sector experienced a significant efficiency improvement post-conflict even with unprecedented branch expansion. The findings, therefore, controvert the mainstream view that bank efficiency declined with rapid industry expansion. Further, we conclude that geographical expansion of the banking sector is a viable and effective policy tool to achieve broad-based and inclusive growth for emerging economies like Sri Lanka, particularly in a period of post-conflict recovery.     

Property rights in conflict: wild berry-picking and the Nordic tradition of allemansrätt

Wild berries became a valuable export article in Sweden and Finland at the end of the nineteenth century. At the time, property rights over wild berries were not explicitly defined, and in both countries, proposals were made to subject the berries to the landowner. The proposals did not pass and wild berry-picking on another's land continued, as seen from today's perspective, to be available to everyone. This paper looks at the socioeconomic context of wild berry-picking, and asks whether the principle of allemansrätt – a Nordic tradition of public access to nature – played a role in why wild berries did not become private property. By focusing on the Finnish penal code debate of 1888 and the process of stabilising the property rights, the paper rejects the idea of continuity. It argues that (1) the traditional allemansrätt is debatable as a historical concept and shows how (2) the contingent political process created the conditions, and economic imagination the impetus, that wild berries were not privatised but turned into an open resource.