Real Incentive Effects of Soft Information

Both soft, noncontractible, and hard, contractible, information are informative about managerial ability and future firm performance. If a manager's future compensation depends on expectations of ability or future performance, then the manager has implicit incentives to affect the information. We examine the real incentive effects of soft information in a dynamic agency with limited commitment. When long-term contracts are renegotiated, the rewards for future performance inherent in long-term contracts allow the principal partial control over the implicit incentives. This is because the soft information affects the basis for contract renegotiation. With short-term contracts, the principal has no control over the basis for contract negotiation, and thus long-term contracts generally dominate short-term contracts. With long-term contracts, the principal's control over implicit incentives is characterized in terms of effective contracting on an implicit aggregation of the soft information that arises from predicting (forming expectations of) future performance. We provide sufficient conditions for soft information to have no real incentive effects. In general, implicit incentives not controllable by the principal include fixed effects, such as career concerns driven by labor markets external to the agency. When controllable incentives span the fixed effects of career concerns, the latter have no real effects with regard to total managerial incentives—they would optimally be the same with or without career concerns. Our analysis suggests empirical tests for estimating career concerns that should explicitly incorporate noncontractible information.     

Problems of information support for predicting labor migration in Russia

The main sources of information for the study of labor migration are discussed, as well as foreign experience in conducting surveys and application applying other sources of migration data. We propose methodological approaches to organizing a household survey to obtain information on labor migration including identification and selection of respondents and determination of basic sets of questions for the survey questionnaire.     

The Impact of Retirement on Household Leisure Expenditures

Household leisure expenditures for retired and near‐retired households were examined in order to better understand the dynamics associated with the move to retirement status. Data from the 1995 Consumer Expenditure Survey indicated that retirement, total expenditures, and education had positive impacts on leisure expenditures. For retired households, greater total expenditures and education increased expenditures, while age and the presence of earned income decreased expenditures. For near‐retired households, greater total expenditures, education, and the presence of asset income significantly increased leisure expenditures.     

Analysis of the status and trends of applications of advanced manufacturing technologies in Russia

The article has analyzed trends in applying advanced manufacturing technologies in Russia in 2005–2014. The dynamics of technical process structures in the context of applications has been considered. The dynamics of the age structure and the structure of technologies in use in annual terms by the place of acquiring has been assessed. The start-up, availability, and removal balance of technologies has been formed, the effective start-up level, and possible ways to improve the state statistical indicators of innovation development have been determined.     

Nanotechnology and the new technological revolution: Expectations and reality

This paper reviews the existing mechanisms of innovative development in the world economy focusing on emerging technologies markets evolution on the example of nanotechnology. The question has been raised of whether nanotechnologies can provide the core of the new technological revolution, and whether these prospects exist for NBIC convergence. In this connection the development of the global market for nano-enabled products following the 2007–2009 crisis and the reliability of the related development forecasts have been assessed. Particular attention has been paid to peculiarities of nanoenabled product market structure and the impact of stagnating R&D costs in the field of nanotechnology.     

Government bond market: Potential for establishing a system of primary dealers in Russia based on relevant world experience

The paper considers a potential improvement in the stability of the Russian government bond market by establishing a system of primary dealers. The existing world models of primary dealership are identified and their relations with national market peculiarities are determined based on the analysis of statistics and regulatory documents of 22 countries. The revealed regularities allow the authors to propose a private dealership model adapted to the specifics of the domestic economy.     

System-dynamic model of regional economy: The case of Rostov oblast

This article presents a method of simulation modeling that is broadly used in regional process studies. Based on this model, we have developed a system of supporting decision-making intended for regional development. Potential development scenarios for the Rostov oblast have been elaborated using statistical data about the region.     

Consistency between Sakernas and the IFLS for Analyses of Indonesia’s Labour Market: A Cross-Validation Exercise

This article assesses the consistency between Indonesia’s National Labour Force Survey (Sakernas) and the Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS) for analyses of the country’s labour market. I show that Sakernas and the IFLS depict different levels of and changes in labour-market indicators. My estimates of the labour-force participation model, the sector-choice model, and the Mincer model are all statistically different between the two surveys, although the magnitudes are similar for labour-force participation and sector choice. The IFLS shows a much higher return to education than Sakernas, according to the Mincer model. In addition, I find that the cross-sectional sample of the IFLS and the panel sample of the IFLS corrected for attrition yield similar coefficient estimates from all equations. The findings in this article provide an important reference for researchers interested in using Sakernas and the IFLS—either individually or combined—to analyse labour-market issues in Indonesia.