The Visibility of Ukrainian Economists 1969-2005

This article studies the visibility of Ukrainian economists. It shows that the number of Ukrainians trained at Western universities is increasing fast and that these economists now start publishing in international journals. At the same time, Ukrainian economists residing and educated in Ukraine still rarely publish in international economics journals. An explanation for both findings is offered.ranking, Ukraine, economists

Female Ministers, Governance and Reforms

In this paper, we test whether the gender composition of government affects the quality of governance and reform efforts, thus connecting the literature that documents the effects of gender on decision making to the literature on the determinants of reforms. We find that countries with a higher share of female ministers and a higher share of female MPs tend to score somewhat better in terms of regulatory quality and government effectiveness, and in terms of reforms in these areas, but also that tackling possible endogeneity shows most of these effects to be insignificant. Our results thus do not provide support for the claim that ‘conducting reforms is not women’s business’, they rather suggest that reform is as much women’s business as it is men’s business.female ministers, gender, governance, reforms

Mattresses versus Banks - The Effect of Trust on Portfolio Composition

This paper adds to the growing literature that studies whether trust affects the financial decisions of people. More specifically, we investigate whether lack of trust in banks can explain why people save their savings in cash, ‘under the mattress’, rather than deposit their savings at the bank. We find a significant effect of lack of trust on the likelihood that a person saves money in cash but also that lack of trust can only provide part of the explanation for the ‘money under the mattress’ phenomenon. Other factors that matter are the financial awareness and access to bank services.trust, bank deposits, cash savings, financial awareness

Weather Effects in Transition

This paper tests whether weather affects stock returns in the transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the CIS. In these countries, reliable information about the fundamentals of stocks is scarce, and hence the ‘mood’ of investors is more likely to play an important role in investment decisions. Nevertheless, our results suggest that there is little evidence of a systematic effect of weather variables on stock markets in these countries.weather effects, transition countries

Do Tobacco Bans Harm the Advertising Industry?

We use panel data on advertising expenditures to check the influence of tobacco advertising bans on the advertising industry. We find no clear evidence of a negative effect of tobacco bans on total per capita advertising expenditures.Tobacco advertising ban

Recent Dynamics of Returns to Education in Transition Countries

This study provides recent estimates of returns to education in transition countries, investigating how the economic boom in the region has affected these returns. We find that transition countries continue to have relatively low returns to education and that the economic boom did not lead to a clear change in these returns. A more detailed investigation for one specific country, Ukraine, confirms these results.returns to education, transition countries

Suspicious Blood and Performance in the 2010 Tour de France

In this note, we analyze whether the International Cycling Union’s ‘index of suspicion’, which reflects the extent to which a rider is suspected of using doping, correlates with performance during the 2010 Tour de France Though our point estimates suggest a medium sized performance improving effect of being suspected of doping, the index of suspicion can only explain a very small part of the variation in performance. We also present some limited evidence that this could be due to the fact that doping has little effect on the outcome of the Tour de France.Doping, Cycling, Tour de France

Is optimization an opportunity ? an assessment of the impact of class size and school size on the performance of Ukrainian secondary schools

Using a rich data set of almost the entire population of Ukrainian secondary schools, the authors estimate the effect of school size and class size on the performance of secondary schools on Ukraine's External Independent Test. They find that larger schools tend to have somewhat better performance, both in terms of test scores and in terms of test participation. The size of this effect is relatively small, however, especially in rural areas for which the estimates are likely to be more clean estimates. Class size is found to be insignificant in most specifications and, if significant, of negligible size.Tertiary Education,Secondary Education,Teaching and Learning,Education For All,Primary Education

Is Optimization an Opportunity? An Assessment of the Impact of Class Size and School Size on the Performance of Ukrainian Secondary Schools

Using a rich data set of almost the entire population of Ukrainian secondary schools, the authors estimatethe effect of school size and class size on the performance of secondary schools on Ukraine's External Independent Test. They find that larger schools tend to have somewhat better performance, both in terms of test scores and in terms of test participation. The size of this effect is relatively small, however, especially in rural areas for which the estimates are likely to be more clean estimates. Class size is found to be insignificant in most specifications and, if significant, of negligible size.Tertiary Education, Secondary Education, Teaching and Learning, Education For All, Primary Education

Scoping potential routes to UK civil unrest via the food system: results of a structured expert elicitation

We report the results of a structured expert elicitation to identify the most likely types of potential food system disruption scenarios for the UK, focusing on routes to civil unrest. We take a backcasting approach by defining as an end-point a Societal Event in which 1 in 2,000 people have been injured in the UK, which 40% of experts rated as “Possible (20–50%)” or “More likely than not (50–80%)” or “Very likely (>80%)” over the coming decade. Over a longer timeframe of 50 years, nearly 80% of experts rated such an event as “Possible (20–50%)” or “More likely than not (50–80%)” or “Very likely (>80%)”. The experts considered two food system scenarios and ranked their plausibility of contributing to the given societal scenario. For a timescale of 10 years the majority identified a food distribution problem as the most likely. Over a timescale of 50 years the experts were more evenly split between the two scenarios, but over half thought the most likely route to civil unrest would be a lack of total food in the UK. Overall, in the next 50 years, 45% of participants said there is a greater than 20% chance of civil unrest due to insufficient food in the UK due to extreme weather or ecological collapse. However, the experts stressed that the various causes are interconnected, can create cascading risks and highlighted the importance of a systems approach. We encourage food system stakeholders to use these results in their risk planning, and recommend future work to support prevention, preparedness, response and recovery planning