Poverty Is No Crime: Measuring Poverty in Russian Regions

Fighting poverty is on the top of Russia’s political agenda. The scope of poverty as well as the poverty profile is still an open question, however. The question is even more open with respect to the Russian regions. One could expect that being a heterogeneous country, Russia’s regional poverty profiles are also heterogeneous. We measure poverty in Russia’s regions using absolute poverty notion, official regional subsistence levels and consumption-based approach. We also draw regional poverty profiles by identifying the factors which influence poverty rates and poverty gaps. The exercise is based on NOBUS database – a nationally and regionally (for 46 regions) representative survey of 45000 households done in April-May 2003. We find that poverty rates vary significantly – up to threefold difference - across regions. The list of factors that influence poverty rate and poverty gap in regions are similar, with variation in relative weights of the factors. The former conforms with other studies on poverty in Russia that conclude that there are no major differences in determinants of transitory or persistent poverty. Some interesting insights in regional-specific patterns of poverty are found.poverty, Russian regions, poverty rate, poverty profile, NOBUS

Active Labor Market Policies in Russia: Regional Interpretation Determines Effectiveness?

Persistently sizeable unemployment attracts interest to active labor market policy as an instrument to reduce unemployment. Moreover, sustainable economic growth requires an effective re-training system, a part of which is usually associated with state employment offices’ programs. Little is known, however, about the effects of active labor market programs (ALMPs) on the unemployed in Russia. The paper is the first attempt to shed some light on effectiveness of ALMP in Russia from micro perspective. The influence of ALMPs on the probability of re-employment is estimated using administrative individual-level data from employment service register on two Russian regions. Overall and group treatment effects of the programs are estimated using the nonexperimental exact matching approach. Two cases - assuming that the first program has the major effect (single program participation) and examining sequences of programs (multiple program participation) – are considered. A matching design allowing taking advantage of duration nature of administrative data to compensate for informational restrictions associated with the dataset is proposed. We find that the programs under consideration seem to prolong the unemployment spells in one of the regions, and help to leave unemployment quicker in the other, with the size of the effects differing 3-5 times. The sizable difference in treatment effects prompt for substantial institutional differences: there seems to be high discretion in interpretation of employment service role in the local labor market revealed in procedures of program assignment.Active Labor Market Policy, Unemployment, Duration Analysis, Exact Matching, Multiple Programs, Transition

Сonceptual bases of financial controlling in the Ukrainian system of consumer cooperatives in the context of the inclusive development paradigm

The article outlines the essence of the inclusive economy paradigm and its key characteristics in application to the cooperative business model, on the basis of which the conceptual basics of financial controlling implementation in Ukrainian system of con-sumer cooperatives are grounded in view of its dualistic nature

A Premium for a Degree in Engineering: An Estimation of Returns to the Field-Specific Education in Russia

We study variation in returns to five groups of majors — pedagogic, engineering, law or economics, humanities and medicine — in terms of wage and employment stability based on The Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey. We find a significant variation in returns to majors with the highest positive wage premiums in engineering, for both males and females, and to higher and secondary degree holders. The year of graduation turns out to be statistically insignificant implying that the «new» degrees are not systematically better or worse than the «old» onesEducation; Employment; Labor; Wage; Wage premium