Central banks' interest rate and international trade in BRIC countries: Agriculture vs machinery industry?

The paper investigates interrelations between the dynamics of national central banks' interest rates and international trade within the BRIC countries. It shows that countries with lower interest rates experience growth of the share of machinery industry exports rather than agriculture and food products, and, on the contrary, in countries with higher interest rates the share of agriculture and food exports increases and the share of machinery industry products declines. The investigation has shown that a relative shift in the interest rate can affect the specialization of countries. --Central banks' interest rate,Exports,Specialization

A proof-of-concept neural network for inferring parameters of a black hole from partial interferometric images of its shadow

We test the possibility of using a convolutional neural network to infer the inclination angle of a black hole directly from the incomplete image of the black hole's shadow in the $uv$-plane. To this end, we develop a proof-of-concept network and use it to explicitly find how the error depends on the degree of coverage, type of input and coverage pattern. We arrive at a typical error of $10^\circ$ at a level of absolute coverage $1\%$ (for a pattern covering a central part of the $uv$-plane), $0.3\%$ (pattern covering the central part and the periphery, the $0.3\%$ referring to the central part only), and $14\%$ (uniform pattern). These numbers refer to a network that takes both amplitude and phase of the visibility function as inputs. We find that this type of network works best in terms of the error itself and its distribution for different angles. In addition, the same type of network demonstrates similarly good performance on highly blurred images mimicking sources nearing being unresolved. In terms of coverage, the magnitude of the error does not change much as one goes from the central pattern to the uniform one. We argue that this may be due to the presence of a typical scale which can be mostly learned by the network from the central part alone.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures. For the code and trained models, see https://bitbucket.org/cosmoVlad/neuro-rep

Central Banks’ Interest Rate and International Trade in BRIC Countries: Agriculture vs. Machinery Industry?

The paper investigates interrelations between the dynamics of national central banks’ interest rates and international trade within the BRIC countries. It shows that countries with lower interest rates experience growth of the share of machinery industry exports rather than agriculture and food products, and, on the contrary, in countries with higher interest rates the share of agriculture and food exports increases and the share of machinery industry products declines. The investigation has shown that a relative shift in the interest rate can affect the specialization of countries

Environmental tradeoffs of agricultural growth in Russian regions and possible sustainable pathways for 2030

The paper analyses the current ecological consequences of agricultural growth in Russia’s main regions (oblast level) during 2011–2019. Our main hypothesis was that local environ­mental risks, like waste concentration, would be closely related to global climate risks such as greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the production of crops, meat, milk, eggs, and from land use change (LUC) activities leading to a larger carbon footprint. We first analyze official data for agricultural waste and find that 30% of it is concentrated in just two regions (Belgorod and Kursk), while they produce only 10% of agricultural value of Russia. Next, we find that manure nutrients have a high concentration in regions where the livestock production is not balanced with appropriate nutrient use on croplands (Dagestan, Astrakhan, Leningrad, and Pskov regions) which might lead to the pollution of soils and local waters. Next, we test the GLOBIOM partial equilibrium model to evaluate proper agricultural protein production quantities in Russian regions and respective GHG emissions from crop, livestock and land use change activities. We find that 21% of the GHG emission in 2019 came from the conversion of former abandoned agricultural land into cropland (starting from 2011). While some regions such as Krasnodar, Rostov, and Stavropol increase productivity with low carbon footprint, others, like Amur and Bryansk, increase production by cropland expansion without respective productivity growth which leads to higher carbon footprint. Our results for livestock operations show that the main hypothesis did not hold up because regions which increase meat production, like Belgorod, Kursk, Pskov, and Leningrad, have a lower carbon footprint due to the production of pork meat and poultry which have lower GHG emissions due to specific digestion. On the other hand, these regions experience a higher environmental footprint due to the large concentration of waste which could be harmful for local eco­systems. Finally, we use the model to project possible future development up to 2030. Our results show the possible growth of crop and livestock products in most of the regions driven by external demand for food. The extensive scenario shows additional GHG emissions from cropland expansion, while the intensive scenario reveals a larger growth rate accompanied by productivity growth and lower carbon footprint, which is essential in harmonizing the current agricultural and climate policy of Russia

Экономическая оценка экосистемных услуг в Тавушской области Республики Армения

The paper analyses the processes of soil degradation which are caused by deforestation and agricultural expantion in Tavushskaya oblast' of Armenia. This includes soil compaction, plant formation loss, intense water and wind erosion on grazelands caused by increase of sheep herd; and soil nutrition losses as a result of drawbacks of land cultivation on hillside cropland. Following the reasons of soil erosion we suggest three scenarios of agricultural and forest land application. The first scenario depicts the current growth rates of deforestation and transforming these areas into cropland, but with time limits of land use because of continuous soil nutrition loss. The second scenario shows the consequences of stopping deforestation and saving current forest area. Finally the third scenario keeps the current forest areas and transforms the degraded grazelands into forestland with a 10% growth rate per decade. Using TEEB methodology for each scenario we calculate the economic value of local ecosystem services, which could be provided from 1 ha in this region for the bext thirty years. The results show that the first scenario gives $16 202, the second$32 776 – 1 312 561, and the third $33 904 – 1 359 678 diapason value of potential ecosystem services per 1 hectare. This all means that it is reasonable to save and regenarate forest land, which help to resist soil erosion and thus have positive effect on food security in the region

Еconomical evaluation of ecosystem services in Tavushskaya oblast' of Armenia

The paper analyses the processes of soil degradation which are caused by deforestation and agricultural expantion in Tavushskaya oblast' of Armenia. This includes soil compaction, plant formation loss, intense water and wind erosion on grazelands caused by increase of sheep herd; and soil nutrition losses as a result of drawbacks of land cultivation on hillside cropland. Following the reasons of soil erosion we suggest three scenarios of agricultural and forest land application. The first scenario depicts the current growth rates of deforestation and transforming these areas into cropland, but with time limits of land use because of continuous soil nutrition loss. The second scenario shows the consequences of stopping deforestation and saving current forest area. Finally the third scenario keeps the current forest areas and transforms the degraded grazelands into forestland with a 10% growth rate per decade. Using TEEB methodology for each scenario we calculate the economic value of local ecosystem services, which could be provided from 1 ha in this region for the bext thirty years. The results show that the first scenario gives $16 202, the second$32 776 – 1 312 561, and the third $33 904 – 1 359 678 diapason value of potential ecosystem services per 1 hectare. This all means that it is reasonable to save and regenarate forest land, which help to resist soil erosion and thus have positive effect on food security in the region

Inflation and the Pattern of Trade: General Conclusions and Evidence for Russia

The purpose of this article is to investigate the effect of differences in the inflation rates of trade-partner countries on their foreign trade patterns. The results of the analysis of a simple trade model served as the basis for an empirical study of Russia's foreign trade. For the purposes of experimental verification, we built Russia's export and import gravity models, using trade data for 2005-2012, as well as indicators reflecting the ratio of inflation rates in Russia and its trade-partner countries by the main commodity groups (inflation data for 1995-2012). The results of the empirical verification have basically confirmed the conclusions derived from the trade model analysis: Russia intensifies its export of fuel and raw-material commodities to countries with lower inflation rates and, simultaneously, increases its import of engineering, chemical, and agricultural products from countries with lower inflation rates

Production Risk, Technology and Market Access in Different Organisational Forms: Evidence from Tatarstan and Oryol

This paper examines price and technology differentials between agroholdings and independent farms in two Russian regions: Oryol and Tatarstan. Both organisational forms receive on average the same product prices which indicates that they have the same market access. Moreover, their technologies are also very similar, as estimated by a risk production frontier. However, differences in the factor input between organi-sational form lead to differences in the shadow prices of the inputs, resulting from the better access of agroholdings to the input markets. The results suggest that production risk, conditions on the product market and inefficiency significantly affect agricultural production. Thus, to improve the conditions, agricultural policy is required to tackle all the issues in parallel using a mix of appropriate policy measures

Assessment of Changes in the Territorial Location of Crop Industries in the Adaptation of Russian Agrarian Policy to Sustainable Development

The study examines the changes in the increase in crop production in the regions of Russia and the environmental consequences in the form of increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions