Consumption Smoothing and Vulnerability in Russia

Applying bootstrapped quantile regression to the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) data, we examine the channels through which individuals experience and seek to cope with changes in consumption. We find that married individuals living in small households, with educated heads in urban areas are better equipped to smooth consumption. Investigating the impact of idiosyncratic shocks, we find that the labour market is an important transmission mechanism allowing households to smooth their consumption but also exposing them to risk, mainly through job loss. Outside of pension payments the formal social safety net does not facilitate consumption smoothing, thus heightening the importance of informal coping institutions. It transpires that both support from relatives/friends and home production act as important insurance mechanisms for the most vulnerable.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/64415/1/wp885.pd

The Great Divide: Ruralisation of Poverty in Russia

Using data from the RLMS for the period 2000-2004 we investigate poverty trends in Russia. We find that urban poverty declines at twice the rate of rural poverty so that by 2004 poverty in Russia had become a largely rural phenomenon for the first time since transition began. This finding does not stem from changing population characteristics or shares, is not dependent on the use of a particular poverty line nor is it driven by the rapid expansions that have occurred in Moscow, St. Petersburg or other urban areas. Our findings flesh out those of Ravallion et al (2007) who, in contrast to other regions, "find signs" of a ruralisation of poverty in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. We attribute some of the differential to the labour market

Consumption Smoothing and Vulnerability in Russia

Applying bootstrapped quantile regression to the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) data, we examine the channels through which individuals experience and seek to cope with changes in consumption. We find that married individuals living in small households, with educated heads in urban areas are better equipped to smooth consumption. Investigating the impact of idiosyncratic shocks, we find that the labour market is an important transmission mechanism allowing households to smooth their consumption but also exposing them to risk, mainly through job loss. Outside of pension payments the formal social safety net does not facilitate consumption smoothing, thus heightening the importance of informal coping institutions. It transpires that both support from relatives/friends and home production act as important insurance mechanisms for the most vulnerable.Russia, economics, vulnerability, consumption smoothing, quantile regression

Vulnerability to welfare change during economic shocks: Evidence from the 1998 Russian crisis

Using changes in consumption as a proxy for "vulnerability" we identify the characteristics associated with vulnerability around the time of the 1998 Russian financial crisis. In addition, we examine the role of formal and informal safety nets in preserving individual well being. We apply quantile regression techniques in order to identify the characteristics associated with vulnerability across the two periods. Amongst those most vulnerable during the crisis were, less educated individuals living in urban areas, in households containing greater numbers of pensioners. Furthermore, we found that increases in home production and help from relatives acted to decrease vulnerability, especially amongst those suffering the largest changes in consumption. Following the crisis, amongst the least vulnerable were, better educated individuals, resident in urban areas, able to increase home production, and in receipt of improved pension payments and child benefits.

Credit Spread Dynamics: Evidence from Latin America

This paper examines the behaviour of credit spreads on key sovereign issuers from the Latin American region, which accounts for more than one third of international bond issues by developing, or emerging, markets. Since the late 1990s, credit spreads on Latin American issues have declined broadly inline with those in other emerging markets. Recent empirical analysis has explained this phenomenon by identifying critical macroeconomic factors, including the reduction in systematic risk in individual markets, although the structural models from the theoretical finance literature also predict the importance of key default and interest rate variables. This contribution adds to the understanding of these issues by investigating the application of structural models to the Latin American setting, one historically characterized by excessive volatility and susceptibility to episodes of default.credit spreads, long-run dynamics, Latin America, sovereign bonds, cointegration

A rate equation approach to cavity mediated laser cooling

The cooling rate for cavity mediated laser cooling scales as the Lamb-Dicke parameter eta squared. A proper analysis of the cooling process hence needs to take terms up to eta^2 in the system dynamics into account. In this paper, we present such an analysis for a standard scenario of cavity mediated laser cooling with eta << 1. Our results confirm that there are many similarities between ordinary and cavity mediated laser cooling. However, for a weakly confined particle inside a strongly coupled cavity, which is the most interesting case for the cooling of molecules, numerical results indicate that even more detailed calculations are needed to model the cooling process accurately.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures, minor corrections, PRA (in press

The Gender Wage Gap and Wage Arrears in Russia: Evidence from the RLMS

Using the RLMS, this paper re-examines the gender wage gap in Russia from 1994 to 1998. We find that the average gender wage gap was fairly stable during 1994-1996 but that it became wider following the financial crisis of 1998. In particular, low-income female employees were hardest hit by the financial crisis. Furthermore, we find that wage arrears and payment in kind acted as compensating mechanisms to reduce losses stemming from higher wage discrimination, suggesting that the allocation of wage arrears and payment in kind was driven by equity considerations for female workers. Yet the relationship between wage arrears and the gender wage gap was not linear: female employees suffering wage arrears at low levels of the wage distribution failed to enjoy such compensation.

A History of the Theatrical and Community Activities in the Early Dell Rapids, South Dakota, Opera House

The purpose of this study is to provide a historical survey and analysis of the early theatrical and community activities that occurred in the Dell Rapids, South Dakota, Opera House. The range of the study extends from 1888 to 1903, although certain years of newspapers are missing in research leaving a portion of the study incomplete. Therefore, this thesis must limit itself to the existing material. The historical survey includes a chronological record of professional and amateur entertainments as well as community activities-performance dates, names of the entertainments or activities, names of the playwrights, and recorded audience attendances whenever possible. It is the further purpose of this study to describe these theatrical and community activities in the setting of the Dell Rapids community during the period in which these activities occurred

Optimized pulse sequences for suppressing unwanted transitions in quantum systems

We investigate the nature of the pulse sequence so that unwanted transitions in quantum systems can be inhibited optimally. For this purpose we show that the sequence of pulses proposed by Uhrig [Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{98}, 100504 (2007)] in the context of inhibition of environmental dephasing effects is optimal. We derive exact results for inhibiting the transitions and confirm the results numerically. We posit a very significant improvement by usage of the Uhrig sequence over an equidistant sequence in decoupling a quantum system from unwanted transitions. The physics of inhibition is the destructive interference between transition amplitudes before and after each pulse.Comment: 5 figure