DRAMATIC EVOLUTION OF STATE-CONFESSIONAL RELATIONS IN THE REPUBLIC OF DAGESTAN IN THE POST-SOVIET PERIOD: FROM RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL CONFRONTATION TO REGIONAL STABILIZATION

В статье исследуется процесс трансформации госу­дарственно-конфессиональных отношений в Республике Дагестан в постсоветские десятилетия. Автор отходит от привычных представ­лений о республике как поля боя между радикальными исламскими группировками, с одной стороны, и властно-силовыми структурами, с другой. Самой важной характеристикой эволюции государственно-­конфессиональных отношений Дагестана можно считать трехступенчатую трансформацию по следующей линии: от религиозно-политической поляризации 1990-х гг. до практик «антитеррора» 2000-х гг. и далее к современной стабилизации общественно-политической ситуации в республике. Религиозно-политическая консолидация, к которой республиканское общество шло последние 7-8 лет, самым благотворным образом ска­залась на развитии всех религиозных общин Республики Дагестан.

Cross-Region Transfer Multipliers in a Monetary Union: Evidence from Social Security and Stimulus Payments

US federal transfers to individuals are large, countercyclical, vary geographically, and are often credited with helping to stabilize regional economies. This paper estimates the short-run effects of these transfers using plausibly exogenous regional variation in temporary stimulus payments and permanent Social Security benefit increases. States that received larger transfers tended to grow faster contemporaneously, with a multiplier of around 1.5 for permanent transfers and 1/3 for temporary transfers. Results are broadly consistent with an open-economy New Keynesian model. At business cycle frequencies, cross-region transfer multipliers are not large, suggesting only modest gains in regional stabilization from US federal automatic stabilizers. (JEL E12, E32, E62, H23, H55, R12)

Regional stabilization and H∞ congestion control with input saturation

Designing robust active queue management subjected to network imperfections is a challenging problem. Motivated by this topic, we addressed the problem of controller design for linear systems with variable delay and unsymmetrical constraints by the scaled small gain theorem. We designed two mechanisms: robust enhanced proportional derivative; and robust enhanced proportional derivative subjected to input saturation. Discussion of their practical implementations along with extensive comparisons by MATLAB and NS3 illustrate the improved performance and the enlargement of the domain of attraction regarding some literature results.

Risk sharing, regional stabilization, and redistribution: the role of fiscal mechanisms in Switzerland

This paper analyses the importance of fiscal mechanisms for regional stabilization and redistribution in Switzerland. Switzerland is particularly interesting in this context because it features both a high level of fiscal autonomy for Swiss cantons, and explicit fiscal transfers between the federal government and the cantons. Based on a panel data analysis, we study the redistributive and stabilizing properties of fiscal equalization transfers, federal government transfers in general, direct federal taxation, the unemployment insurance scheme, and the first pillar pension scheme. We find a combined redistributive effect of these mechanisms of about 20%. This means that long-run income differentials of 1 Swiss franc between cantons translate into differences of long-run disposable income after taxes and transfers of about 80 cents. The combined contemporary stabilization effect with respect to short-term income fluctuations amounts, at best, to 10%, which is a small effect compared to previous findings for other countries.