Russia's Market Transition: Who Has Lost and How?

In this paper, we analyze a variety of labor market adjustment issues facing Russian households from 1992 to 1996 on the basis of a panel data set which allows us to group the sample respondents by demographic, occupational and job location features. We employ multivariate specifications for analyzing patterns of job security and job replacement concerns, involuntary layoffs and voluntary quits, forced unpaid leave and its duration, monthly hours of work and short-time, no employment spell and unemployment incidence as they affected our respondents selected by demographic characteristics, occupation, and region. Among our principal finding is that men and women had increased fears of job loss and increased pessimism about their reemployment prospects during the years considered here but women had borne a greater burden of the majority of the "quantity" or employment adjustments

To Pay or Not to Pay: Managerial Decision Making and Wage Withholding in Russia

In this paper we investigate the decisions of Russian managers in distributing wage nonpayment in Russia during the 1994-96 period. Using a longitudinal survey of households, we identify a pattern of wage arrears across regions and industries which suggests that managers allocated nonpayment among workers so as to minimize the real wage declines experienced by higher productivity workers. This finding suggests that post-Soviet managers were responding more strongly to market incentives than to equity considerations in their wage withholding allocation decisions

The Wage Arrears Crisis in Russia

In this paper, we propose an analytical framework suggesting that wage nonpayment in the Russian state sector and privatized factories, which resulted from acute cash flow problems in both, reflected an implicit contract among the government, managers and labor against worker layoff. We analyze the impact of wage nonpayment on workers grouped by demographic features, occupation and job location on the basis of a panel data set covering the years 1994 to 1996. Based on a multivariate specification that incorporates these features, we find that the frequency and amount of wage withholding increased sharply in 1996. While wages were denied less frequently and in lower amounts to low paid workers by age, occupation and location, this pattern(for which we find a correlation between the frequency of wage nonpayment and wage level at the regional level), needs to be confirmed with further statistical tests. While the practice of wage nonpayment tended to push families into poverty and increase their expectation of living in poverty in the immediate future, it also raised the likelihood of workers holding additional jobs and undertaking informal paid activity. At the same time, the frequency and magnitude of barter payments to workers in our sample were not sufficient to exercise a significant effect in mitigating the adverse effects of wage arrears

Development and evaluation of an emulsion containing lycopene for combating acceleration of skin aging

Licopeno é um carotenóide com potente atividade antioxidante encontrado em grande quantidade no tomate e usado no combate a diversas doenças como doenças cardiovasculares e diferentes tipos de cânceres, incluindo o câncer de próstata. O objetivo desse trabalho foi desenvolver uma emulsão contendo extrato de licopeno obtido do tomate salada e avaliar a citotoxicidade do extrato, a estabilidade, o comportamento reológico, atividade antioxidante e permeação do fitocosmético. O cosmético foi desenvolvido utilizando fase oleosa contendo derivados de Karité e submetido à avaliação da estabilidade físico-química, espalhabilidade, análise térmica, comportamento reológico, qualidade microbiológica, citotoxicidade, atividade antioxidante e testes de permeação e retenção cutânea. Os resultados demonstraram que o fitocosmético é estável, apresenta comportamento reológico desejável para uma formulação tópica e é um produto promissor para ser utilizado no combate à aceleração do envelhecimento cutâneo.Lycopene, a carotenoid and potent antioxidant is found in large quantities in tomatoes. Lycopene combats diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and different types of cancer, including prostate cancer. However, its topical use in emulsion form for the combat of skin aging is under-explored. The aim of the present study was to develop an emulsion containing lycopene extracted from salad tomatoes and evaluate its cytotoxicity, stability, rheological behavior, antioxidant activity and phytocosmetic permeation. The developed cosmetic comprised an oil phase made up of shea derivatives and was evaluated in terms of its physiochemical stability, spreadability, thermal analysis, rheological behavior, microbiological quality, cytotoxicity, antioxidant activity, cutaneous permeation and retention. The results demonstrate that this phytocosmetic is stable, exhibits satisfactory rheological behavior for a topical formula and is a promising product for combating skin aging