Financial dollarization in Russia: causes and consequences

We review some aspects of financial dollarization in Russia, applying the main relevant theories to analyze the dynamics of several dollarization indicators. An econometric model of the short run dynamics of deposit and loan dollarization is estimated for the last decade. We find that ruble appreciation was the main driver of the de-dollarization that occurred then and of the later episode of renewed dollarization. We estimate the overall (and sectoral) currency mismatches of the Russian economy. The results show a gradual improvement of the net foreign currency position of the public sector, where we have seen significant accumulation of international reserves by the Bank of Russia and repayment of government debt. Evidence is also presented for the significant currency risk vulnerability of the nonbanking private sector. Several existing empirical studies are examined in order to assess the growth losses of the Russian economy following the crisis of 2008, which was linked with the financial dollarization.financial dollarization; currency mismatch; balance sheet effects; Russia

STUDY OF THE EMOTIONAL COMPONENT OF PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN VALUE ATTITUDE TO ECOLOGICAL SITUATIONS OF THE REGION

Unfavorable forecasts of environmental scientists regarding environmental changes actualize the problem of environmental values importance in the process of children upbringing.The article theoretically substantiates that emotions caused by perception of ecological situations of their region leave unconscious "imprints" in the child's life and therefore can serve as a psychological foundation for the formation of these values in primary school children.  For children of primary school age, when they assess environmental situations, circumstances, events they encounter in their lives, the emotional reaction often outstrips the cognitive one, reflects the personal meaning, value attitude of a child towards them.The aim of the article is to study the emotional component of primary school children’ value attitude to the ecological situation of his region in order to introduce core value of "ecological safety" into his/her system of values. The study was based on the analysis of philosophical, psychological and pedagogical literary sources, testing, interviewing primary school children and pedagogical experiment.Managing the emotional development of primary schoolchildren can significantly change their value attitude to nature. Under conditions of the experiment, 61% of children began to realize their need for vigorous activity, and 17% of junior schoolchildren became psychologically ready for joint environmental protection activities

EMPIRICAL STUDY OF THE FORMATION OF COMMUNICATIVE UNIVERSAL EDUCATIONAL ACTIONS IN YOUNGER STUDENTS

Effective pedagogical management of the formation of communicative skills in schoolchildren is impossible without monitoring the degree of their formation. The article presents the materials of diagnostic tools, including a questionnaire, criteria and nominative indicators for assessing the degree of formation of the components of communicative universal educational actions. The questionnaire is adapted to the age characteristics of younger students.On the basis of the developed criteria and indicators, a theoretical model of possible levels of mastery by younger students of the communicative actions of interaction, interiorization and cooperation is proposed. The article introduces the results of determining the levels of formation of communicative universal educational actions among elementary school graduates. The study was based on an analysis of literary sources, a survey of primary school students and theoretical modeling.

THE FORMATION OF THE AESTHETIC ATTITUDE OF JUNIOR SCHOOLCHILDREN TO FOLKLORE MEANS THE INTEGRATION OF THE ARTS

The need to form the artistic and aesthetic attitude of children to folklore and to cultivate a love of popular culture actualizes the topic of the article.The purpose of the article is a theoretical justification for the possibility of integrating the arts as a means of forming the aesthetic attitude of junior schoolchildren to folklore; the development of a diagnostic apparatus (criteria, diagnostic techniques and levels) of the formation of the aesthetic attitude of children to folklore, the definition of the arts used in the training and their integration links.The authors propose the structure of the aesthetic attitude of children to folklore, the criteria of its formation (motives and needs of children to study folklore, imagery, verbalization, аbstraction, symbolism, metophorization describe the results of empirical research of the original level, the exact knowledge of which will contribute to an effective change in the aesthetic attitude of junior schoolchildren to folklore.The study is based on an analysis of philosophical and psychological-educational sources; empirical methods (pedagogical experiment, questionnaire, testing) and Methods of diagnosis of figurative and verbal development рersonality theory.The article provides examples of the judgments of junior schoolchildren, which led to the conclusion that, that children of experimental (EG) and control groups (KG) in general, show interest in the integration of arts and are at an average (61.5% EG, and 69.2% -KG) (23.1% - EG and 19.2% (KG) or low levels of the formation of aesthetic attitude to folklore. The findings suggest that further work is needed to develop this phenomenon

Essays in Macroeconomics

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. July 2018. Major: Economics. Advisors: Manuel Amador, Timothy Kehoe. 1 computer file (PDF); ix, 88 pages.This dissertation consists of three chapters. The first chapter studies the origin of the German labor market "miracle". I develop a search and matching model with multi-worker firms and a two-tier unemployment insurance system to explore the role of the 2005 unemployment insurance reform (the Hartz IV reform) in reducing the cyclical volatility of German employment. Lower long-term unemployment benefits reduce firms' incentives to cut employment during downturns, and render adjustment along the intensive margin relatively more important. Calibrating my model to German pre-reform data, I find that the reform reduced the volatility of employment by 68% and was the main reason behind the mild response of the German labor market to the Great Recession. A short-time work policy, praised as the key to the German "miracle," played a minor role. I also find that the reform raised an average worker's welfare by 1.18%. In the second chapter, written jointly with Aysa Dordzhieva, we study the inertia in sovereign credit ratings. We document that in the run-up to the European debt crisis sovereign credit ratings of Italy, Portugal and Spain displayed a higher degree of inertia. We suggest that the observed inertia in sovereign ratings was the result of the optimal behavior of credit rating agencies, and it might have helped to prevent a severe banking crisis. We build a sovereign default model with a credit rating agency (CRA) that maximizes the accuracy of its credit ratings. CRA receives private information about country's fundamentals and chooses whether to update its rating or not. We assume that a rating downgrade triggers a banking crisis in the near future irrespective of the government's default decision. We show that under certain conditions it is optimal for CRA not to downgrade even if it gets a negative signal and the probability of default goes up. Finally, the third chapter proposes a theory of the direct pass-through of sovereign default risk to firms that can generate the co-movement of sovereign and corporate spreads. I develop a model of sovereign default and bailout in an economy with productivity shocks. A key feature of the model is that the probability that the firm is going to be bailed out is endogenous and non-monotonic in the level of output. The bailout is more likely when the output is high. It is also more likely when the output is low and the government has a strong incentive to borrow: instead of repaying the debt, the government can default and bail out the firm. When the output is in the medium range, the probability of bailout is lower because the government is rich enough not to default but is not rich enough to be able to repay its debt and afford costly bailout. Since the firm internalizes this when it makes its investment decision, it takes more risk by buying more capital when the probability of bailout is higher and hence faces lower bond prices. This non-monotonicity in the firm's capital decision implies that the government and the firm's bond prices move together as long as the level of output is not too high

Business beyond politics? A-political corporate leadership in authoritarian Russia

This chapter explores the changing approach to leadership at Yandex (often referred to as ‘the Russian Google’) in the context of increasingly authoritarian Russian state politics. We consider the transformation of the initially liberal, pro-democracy leadership ethos of the Yandex founders into a-political corporate leadership – a contradictory form of leadership that attempts to keep business beyond extra-organisational politics but in so doing itself constitutes political practice and involves political (ir)responsibilities. At Yandex it has become entwined with caring leadership, whereby the abdication of extra-organisational political responsibility is justified as a means of responding to employees’ material, social and political needs (the latter necessitating protection from the state). Identifying three interdependent strategies of a-political corporate leadership: construction of corporate sovereignty, political compromise, and focus on business growth, we discuss the ethical complexities of a-political caring leadership in authoritarian contexts and beyond. Specifically, we highlight the problematics of political compromise and responsibility in leadership practice and emphasise the importance of balancing intra- and extra-organisational corporate politics and ethics, and considerations of care and justice

Emotional Comprehension of the Value of Environmental Safety by Schoolchildren with Intellectual Disability

The topicality of the study is explained by the fact that schoolchildren with a temporary intellectual disability perceive the world around them, the ecological situation, and natural processes in a peculiar way. Such children have difficulty comprehending some terminal values, such as “environmental safety”. The purpose of the article is to theoretically and experimentally substantiate the methods and means of emotional comprehension of environmental safety by schoolchildren with temporary intellectual disability. The research was based on the methods of theoretical analysis of domestic and foreign literary sources, testing of 20 students with intellectual disability, interviewing, and a pedagogical experiment. The article theoretically justifies that emotional comprehension of the value of environmental safety by schoolchildren with temporary intellectual disability is possible as a result of their constantly organized assessment of environmental situations. The analysis of diagnostics made it possible to establish that, without special work with schoolchildren with intellectual disability, 25% of the children emotionally inadequately assess the environmental situations offered to them visually and verbally. The majority of students (60%) does not feel the need for active action. 5% of children believe that they cannot in any way change or influence the ecological situations in their region. The practical significance of the results of the study lies in the experimental proof that in order to understand the value of environmental safety for children with intellectual disability, it is necessary to use the methods of “emotional explosion”, empathy, emotional-value contrasts, accentuation of emotions, and during the collective project activity to role-play psychological situations

Express Method for Assessing Optimality of Industrial Heat Exchangers for Adsorption Heat Transformation

In this work, four radiators with different core geometries were tested using a wind tunnel. The values of the global heat transfer coefficient (UA = 5 ÷ 65 W/K) were measured depending on the flow of air and water. The obtained UA values correlate well with the data of sorption experiments described in the literature. The found correlations between the Nusselt and Reynolds numbers made it possible to propose an algorithm for ranging commercial air radiators for the use in adsorption heat transformers. It is shown that the use of a wind tunnel can serve as an effective tool for express assessment of the prospects of using air radiators for adsorption heat conversion without destroying radiators or their direct testing in a complex adsorption installation requiring vacuum maintenance

Implementation of the Model of Noosphere-Aesthetic Education of Primary School Students by Means of Regional Culture

The relevance of the problem of noosphere-aesthetic education of primary school students is due to the need for their entry into noosphere-cultural space of the region which affects the formation of humanistic attitude of students to all life on the earth, their native nature and culture; insufficient theoretical and practical development of the model for the implementation of this phenomenon.The purpose of the article is theoretical substantiation, development and implementation of the model of noosphere-aesthetic education of primary school students by means of regional culture.The leading method of research is modeling which allows to create and implement an integral system of noosphere-aesthetic education of primary school students by means of regional culture.On the basis of cultural and environmental approaches we have defined the content of the concepts "noosphere-aesthetic education of primary school students", “regional culture" and proved the effectiveness of the model for implementing this approach. In this article from the standpoint of cultural and environmental approaches the concept of "noosphere-aesthetic education of primary school students" is clarified, the effectiveness of the implementation model of this phenomenon by means of regional culture is proved, prospects of using its building blocks: target, structural, diagnostic, technological and effective in the education system are substantiated.The results of the research presented in the article and statistical processing of experimental data using R.Fisher's angular coefficient of transformation proved the effectiveness of proposed model in educational process.Practical significance of the study is that diagnostic techniques, program, process unit of the model presented in the article contribute to more efficient noosphere education of primary school students and can be used by teachers of higher school, primary school teachers and educators in their activities