Federal Tax Arrears in Russia: Liquidity Problems, Federal Redistribution, or Regional Resistance?

Three hypotheses about the nature of federal tax arrears in Russia in the second half of the 1990s are tested empirically. Tax arrears can be a result of: 1) liquidity problems in firms, 2) redistribute subsidies of the federal government, or 3) regional political resistance to federal tax collectors. Liquidity problems in firms explain a large part of variation in tax arrears. Regional political resistance to federal tax collectors was also an important factor: For a given level of liquidity, federal arrears accumulated faster in regions where governors had larger popular base, regions with better bargaining position vis-a-vis the center, and regions with governors in political opposition to the center. We find that patterns of federal arrears are inconsistent with redistributive politics premise that redistribution favors jurisdictions with “closer races” for the incumbent on the national elections. Variation in authorized tax deferrals, in part, can be explained by federal redistributive politics.Tax arrears, Regional protection, Russia, Transition, Redistributive politics

Likelihood Inference in Some Finite Mixture Models

Parametric mixture models are commonly used in applied work, especially empirical economics, where these models are often employed to learn for example about the proportions of various types in a given population. This paper examines the inference question on the proportions (mixing probability) in a simple mixture model in the presence of nuisance parameters when sample size is large. It is well known that likelihood inference in mixture models is complicated due to 1) lack of point identification, and 2) parameters (for example, mixing probabilities) whose true value may lie on the boundary of the parameter space. These issues cause the profiled likelihood ratio (PLR) statistic to admit asymptotic limits that differ discontinuously depending on how the true density of the data approaches the regions of singularities where there is lack of point identification. This lack of uniformity in the asymptotic distribution suggests that confidence intervals based on pointwise asymptotic approximations might lead to faulty inferences. This paper examines this problem in details in a finite mixture model and provides possible fixes based on the parametric bootstrap. We examine the performance of this parametric bootstrap in Monte Carlo experiments and apply it to data from Beauty Contest experiments. We also examine small sample inferences and projection methods

Ethnic identity of saami teenagers – representatives of the indigenous peoples of the far north of Russia

This article addresses the problem of studying ethnic identity in Saami adolescents, representatives of indigenous peoples of the Russian Far North. The aim of the research is to study ethnic identity in adolescent Saami boys and girls. The article presents the results of an empirical research conducted using the “Types of ethnic identity” technique developed by G.U. Soldatova and S.V. Ryzhova. 39 Saami adolescents aged 12-13 years (18 boys and 21 girls) and 40 Saami adolescents aged 14-15 years (23 boys and 17 girls) participated in our empirical research as respondents. All the respondents live in the village of Lovozero in the Murmansk region. To identify specific features of ethnic identity development among Saami adolescents, we included ethnic Russian adolescent respondents: 59 people aged 12-13 years (31 boys and 28 girls), and 62 people aged 14-15 years (32 boys and 30 girls). Empirical data was collected in the period from April to May 2018. The analysis of the empirical research results allowed us to identify the dynamics in the development of ethno-nihilism, ethnic indifference, positive ethnic identity, ethno-egoism, ethno-isolationism and ethno-fanaticism in adolescent Saami boys and girls (12 to 15 years). The research revealed specific features of ethnic identity in Saami adolescents in comparison with their ethnic Russian agemates. The results of this research can be used to preserve and develop ethnic identity among indigenous adolescents in the Arctic territories of the European North of Russia. In future, this will allow to develop individual routes of training and education for indigenous adolescents in the Far North, to improve the system of psychological counselling and support. This will provide prospects for preservation of indigenous culture, traditions and ethnic identity, which will in its turn contribute to the development of the Northern territories, implementation of national interests, and achievement of the state strategic goals in the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation

The Impact of Digitalization on the Enterprise System: Russia and Italy and the Discipline of Smart Working Between Constraints and Opportunities

The article is dedicated to the impact of digitalization on the enterprise system from the point of view of Italian and Russian legal regimes. The increasing impact of technological innovation in everyday life is leading to important changes, also in the context of the employment relationship, in many perspectives. The authors analyze the transformation of legal regulation of Italy and Russia in the sphere of labor relations, paying special attention to the challenges that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic

Development of time perspective in nenets, Sami and Russian adolescents: A comparative analysis

This paper is concerned with the issue of studying specific features of the development of time perspective in adolescents representing different ethnic groups living in the North of Russia. The study includes a comparative analysis of the development of time perspective in Nenets, Sami, and ethnic Russian male and female adolescents.The current article presents the results of an empirical study conducted using the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory. The respondents in the empirical study were 99 Nenets adolescents aged 12-15 years (54 boys and 45 girls); 79 Sami adolescents aged 12-15 years (41 boys and 38 girls); 121 ethnic Russian adolescents aged 12-15 years (63 boys and 58 girls).The comparative analysis of the development of time perspective in Nenets, Sami, and ethnic Russian adolescents has shown the presence of similar trends characteristic of the age group in general, and specific features at the same time. The results of the study enrich the scientific understanding of the phenomenon of time perspective, supplement and expand the understanding of the process of personality formation in representatives of different ethnic groups living in the North of Russia. The identified features of time perspective in adolescents will help to supplement the programs of psychological assistance and support for adolescents in the aspect of building life strategies, implementing capabilities of forecasting life prospects and managing time resources

Identification of Panel Data Models with Endogenous Censoring

This paper analyzes the identification question in censored panel data models, where the censoring can depend on both observable and unobservable variables in arbitrary ways. Under some general conditions, we derive the tightest sets on the parameter of interest. These sets (which can be singletons) represent the limit of what one can learn about the parameter of interest given the model and the data in that every parameter that belongs to these sets is observationally equivalent to the true parameter. We consider two separate sets of assumptions, motivated by the previous literature, each controlling for unobserved heterogeneity with an individual specific (fixed) effect. The first imposes a stationarity assumption on the unobserved disturbance terms, along the lines of Manski (1987), and Honor ́e (1993). The second is a nonstationary model that imposes a conditional independence assumption. For both models, we provide sufficient conditions for these models to point identify the parameters. Since our identified sets are defined through parameters that obey first order dominance, we outline easily implementable approaches to build confidence regions based on recent advances in Linton et.al.(2010) on bootstrapping tests of stochastic dominance. We also extend our results to dynamic versions of the censored panel models in which we consider lagged observed, latent dependent variables and lagged censoring indicator variables as regressors