Job Creation and Job Destruction in the Russian Federation

We study Russian job dynamics in transition using micro-level data sets from the December 1996 and June 1997 administrative records of firms in manufacturing, mining, trading and construction, for a pool of representative regions. We show that in 1997 small firms were the most successful at creating jobs while medium and large firms were mainly destroying them. Privatised firms fared no better than state-owned firms whilst de novo private firms had a considerably superior record relative to other firms with respect to job creation. However, much of this superior performance was related to labour market entry.

Grime and Punishment: Employment, Wages and Wage Arrears in the Russian Federation

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39493/3/wp103.pd

Contidioning Prices on Purchase History

Many transactions are now computer mediated, making it possible for sellers to condition their pricing on the history of interactions with individual consumers. This paper investigates conditions under which price conditioning will or will not be used. Our simplest model involves rational consumers with constant valuations for the good being sold and a monopoly seller who can commit to a pricing policy. In this framework, the seller will not find it profitable to condition pricing on past behavior. We consider various generalizations of this model, such as allowing the seller to offer enhanced services to previous customers, making the seller unable to commit to a pricing policy, and allowing competition in the marketplace. All of these generalizations have equilibria with price conditioning.Price discrimination, Price conditioning, Privacy, Ecommerce

Experimental Measurement of Attitudes Regarding Cybercrime

We conducted six between-subjects survey experiments to examine how judgments of cyber-crime vary as a function of characteristics of the crime. The experiments presented vignettes that described a fictional cybercrime in which someone broke into an organization’s network and downloaded data records. In each experiment, we manipulated the vignettes according to one dimension per experiment: type of data, scope, motivation, the organization’s co-responsibility for the crime, consequences, and context. Participants were U.S. residents recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk. We find that scope (the number of records downloaded) and the attacker’s motivation had significant effects on the perceived seriousness of the crime. Participants also recommended harsher punishments when the monetary costs of the cybercrime were higher. Furthermore, participants considered cybercrimes committed by activists to be significantly less blameworthy, and deserving of significantly lighter sentences, than cybercrimes committed for profit—contrary to the position sometimes taken by U.S. prosecutors.

`I make up a silly name': Understanding Children's Perception of Privacy Risks Online

Children under 11 are often regarded as too young to comprehend the implications of online privacy. Perhaps as a result, little research has focused on younger kids' risk recognition and coping. Such knowledge is, however, critical for designing efficient safeguarding mechanisms for this age group. Through 12 focus group studies with 29 children aged 6-10 from UK schools, we examined how children described privacy risks related to their use of tablet computers and what information was used by them to identify threats. We found that children could identify and articulate certain privacy risks well, such as information oversharing or revealing real identities online; however, they had less awareness with respect to other risks, such as online tracking or game promotions. Our findings offer promising directions for supporting children's awareness of cyber risks and the ability to protect themselves online.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figur