The wage and non-wage costs of displacement in boom times: Evidence from Russia

This paper analyzes the costs of job loss over the years of a booming economy, 2003–2008, using unique data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey. In addition to analyzing standard labor market outcomes, such as forgone earnings, employment, hours worked and wage penalties, our unique data set allows us to investigate additional non-wage costs of displacement, in particular, fringe benefits, the propensity to have an informal employment relationship or a temporary contract. We find that displaced individuals face large foregone earnings following displacement, which are heterogeneous across education and ownership type of firm from which the worker separated. There is no evidence of wage penalties for re-employed displaced workers. However, we find an increased probability of working in informal or temporary jobs if previously displaced and a reduction in the number of benefits.     

Balancing centripetal and centrifugal forces in the entrepreneurial university: a study of 10 research centres in a technical university

In the recent interest for the so-called entrepreneurial university, there is a strong emphasis on academic (i.e. theoretical) knowledge to be used more effectively as a source of innovation and renewal in industry. Drawing on a theoretical framework developed by the literature theorist Mikhail Bakhtin and a study of 10 research centres in a major technical university, this paper suggests that rather than representing something radically new, the entrepreneurial university is a domain wherein traditional academic research interests and industry objectives are continuously negotiated and mutually adjusted. Seen in this view, the entrepreneurial university is what is always in a process of becoming, in flux and change, continuously under the influence of opposing and complementary goals and objectives. Therefore, the entrepreneurial university is not a solid state or an entrenched position but the effect of an attitude towards the role and purpose of the university in the so-called knowledge society.     

International Environmental Agreements,Fiscal Federalism,and Constitutional Design

In this paper, we analyze how the prospect of international negotiations over trans‐boundary pollution shapes intracountry transfer schemes when the governments of the countries' polluting regions are in charge of environmental policy and negotiations. Federal governments can implement compensation payments between domestic regions and matching grants prior to the international negotiations between the polluting regions. The subgame‐perfect transfer schemes fail to fully internalize the environmental externality, leading to an inefficient international environmental agreement. As the international spillover increases, the intracountry compensation rates increase while the matching rates decline, distorting the incentives for the regional governments in opposing directions. We also show that decentralization of environmental decision making arises endogenously.     

Competition and Participation in Religious Markets: Evidence from Victorian Scotland

In 1885, the largest churches in Scotland were engaged in a dispute about state funding. We use data generated in the course of that dispute to test two related hypotheses. First, as market size (proxied by population) increases, the competitiveness (or complexity) of the religious market structure will not decrease. Second, religious activity, as measured by giving per member, church income and participation, will not decrease as market competitiveness (or complexity) increases. Empirical evidence lends support to the first hypothesis, but casts doubt on the second, and the supply-side theories underpinning it, which posit a causal link between increased competitiveness (complexity) and higher levels of religious activity. In interpreting the results the importance of a rich understanding of institutional arrangements—particularly market structure, governance and financing—is underlined.     

Growth: some combined cross- sectional and time series evidence from OECD countries

The uncovered interest rate parity hypothesis and three variants of the monetary approach to exchange rate determination are assessed under a vector autoregression representation of the available information variables, using monthly data on six major US dollar exchange rates over the period 1978–90. A large information set is used, and the time series properties of the information variables are taken into account. The cross-equation restrictions imposed on the estimated parameters are tested statistically and the economic significance of the models is evaluated independently on the basis of appropriate volatility tests. A weak test for exchange rate bubbles, based on a decomposition of market noise, is proposed.     

Democracy, size of bureaucracy, and economic growth: evidence from Russian regions

This article considers the impact of sub-national political systems on economic growth by applying the case of Russian regions from 2000 to 2004. It investigates two dimensions of the sub-national systems. First, it studies the influence of democracy on economic performance, providing evidence of a non-linear relationship between democracy and economic growth. Regions with high levels of democracy, as well as strong autocracies, perform better than hybrid regimes. Second, this article considers the influence of the size of the bureaucracy on economic outcomes and confirms the ??grabbing hand?? view on bureaucracy rather than the Weberian idea. Increasing the size of the bureaucracy is associated with a decline in economic performance. In addition, this article analyzes the potential interaction between these two characteristics of sub-national politics as factors of economic growth, but does not establish any robust results.