Traditional Values and Institutional Quality

Why do similar economic and political institutions function differently in various cultures? This paper tries to identify potentially important factors related to the institutional quality. We investigate the relationship between cultures, cultural dimensions: non-tradition in particular, and formal institutions to explain differences in the quality of institutions around the world. We use a measure of traditional values, structured by Inglehart and Baker, from the World Values Survey, to extend the literature on the determinants of institutions’ quality. We show that differences in traditional values are suggestive to explain differences in the quality of institutions across countries. The OLS method is utilized in order to analyze the factors of institutional quality in sixty countries in 2010–2014. In this study, the OLS models are employed in order to understand the key factors of institutional differences among countries in the period of 2010–2014. The empirical model results show that (i) non-tradition is a reliable significant variable with positive contributions on six institutional quality variables, (ii) urbanization has unexpected negative effects on some institutional quality indicators like rule of law, political stability and voice/accountability. However, it has meaningful contribution to control of corruption in the countries, (iii) economic development have increasing impacts on the majority of the institutional quality variables, (iv) while education has positive effects on government effectiveness, political stability and regulation quality, it has negative unexpected impacts on rule of law and voice/accountability, (v) openness has only effects on corruption and political stability, (vi) there are non-linear relationships between dependent variable(s) and independent variables rather than linear relationships

Spatial Modeling of Voter Choice: The Survey of Theoretical and Empirical Approach

As for today, political elections are the key form of people’s participation in the formation of the state in all democratic countries, which is why theoretical works in the field of spatial modeling of voter choice appeared relatively long ago and played a major role in the development of both further theoretical and empirical research in this area. In this survey we firstly give a brief overview of the history of the formation of spatial modeling in relation to election results and political preferences of individuals from the point of view of research methodology, based on the classical theoretical ‘proximity model’ and ‘directional model’, where rational individuals determine their political positions and compare them with the positions of candidates. Secondly, we explain the appearance of the studies of the mutual influence of voters living in neighboring territories on each other as one of the factors that determine the voters’ political positions and, accordingly, the final choice of a candidate. We also point out the authors’ different explanations of the reasons for the appearance of such mutual influence of voters and other factors affecting voters living in neighboring territories (also called as ‘contextual effects’) and emphasize the importance of taking them into account in the studies of electoral preferences. A separate chapter in this paper presents the systematization and description of the main empirical approaches to spatial modeling of electoral choice: at the beginning, we present the basic econometric spatial models (used by the authors regardless of the subject of the study), and then we describe the empirical work in the field of voter choice, depending on the hypotheses, focusing on the research methodology and the data used. In conclusion, we define the main directions for the research development and the vector of further practical work in this area. This paper will help researchers understand existing fundamental works, evaluate current approaches to the modeling of electoral choice, and improve theoretical or empirical spatial analysis

Fishing Fleet Development Program: Expectations аnd Realities

The review is devoted to the analysis of expert opinions on the interim results of the implementation of the program ‘Development of the fisheries complex’. The high rate of reduction of the fishing fleet, the increasing risks of a lack of production capacity and restrictions on the increase in the volume of production of aquatic biological resources, the low degree of processing of catches on ships and the lack of innovations in the fisheries complex were prerequisites for the development of the Federal Program ‘Development of the Fisheries Complex’, adopted in 2014. It was supposed to solve a number of tasks that ensure the departure from the raw material orientation of exports by stimulating the production of products with a high share of added value through the development of the scientific and technical potential of the fisheries complex. Its implementation has indeed contributed to a sharp increase in investment in the modernization of the existing fishing fleet and in the construction of new vessels due to the change in the principle of quota allocation. However, the analysis of the implementation of investment projects shows a steady lag behind the deadlines for putting new ships into operation, which leads to negative financial consequences for investor companies. Due to the late commissioning of fishing vessels, investor companies are unable to catch products and meet their financial obligations to financial institutions in a timely manner. The change in the historical principle of quota allocation and the introduction of a new ‘keel quota’ mechanism, deprives fishing enterprises of a certain part of the potential income with which these enterprises intended to cover previously made investments in the modernization and re-equipment of the fleet and coastal processing. It can be stated that at present this program supports only the shipbuilding complex, ignoring the financial interests of both fishing and fish processing enterprises. The author’s position is based on the fact that it is necessary to carry out not only the modernization and renewal of the fleet, but also to develop technologies for deep and waste-free processing of extracted aquatic bioresources within the framework of existing food programs. In terms of organizing the processing of waste generated during the extraction of aquatic bioresources, it is necessary to adjust the program ‘Development of the fisheries complex’

Attitude towards Immigrants in Russia: Regional Aspect

The paper examines the issues related to the identifying factors that influence the attitude of Russian people towards immigrants. As such factors, we selected the individual characteristics of the respondents (gender, age, educational level, marital status, income level, etc.), as well as indicators characterizing the respondent’s place of residence (region, type of settlement) and the economic situation in the corresponding region. (gross regional product per capita, unemployment rate, share of industries in which migrants are most employed, etc.). The analysis was based on the data of the 7th World Value Survey for Russia in 2017, containing information on 1,810 respondents from 61 Russian regions. With the help of linear regression models and geographically weighted regression was shown that the best attitude towards immigrants demonstrated young people and older generation, respondents with higher education and with average or high-income level. However, attitudes towards immigrants are varying sufficiently and greatly depend on the place of residence. The best attitude towards immigrants demonstrate residents of non-capital cities, as well as residents of the Samara and Saratov regions, the worst – residents of the most poor and most rich regions.Attitude towards immigrants is also improving with an increase in the share of construction and trade in the economy of the region (these industries employ the most immigrants). Local residents are gradually getting used to immigrants, the higher the proportion of migrants who came from abroad, the better the residents of the respective region relate to immigrants

The Impact of Debt Burden on the Number of Suicides in the Russian Regions

Population size is one of the most important parameters of national social and economic systems. This parameter is controlled by a variety of factors (components) that form ambiguous and complex feedback circuits. The most important issue is the study of the behavioral reactions of the population, which form certain parameters of the dynamics of the population. The authors consider only one behavioral reaction that seems to them to be important – the propensity for suicide, which ultimately leads to the formation of the suicide dynamics and which entails serious socio-economic and demographic losses. We put an emphasis on assessing the impact of financial parameters, namely households’ debt burden, on the suicide rates in the Russian regions. An econometric assessment of the influence of individual debt on the number of suicides among other socio-economic factors (unemployment rate, logarithm of GRP per capita, divorce rate, number of patients with mental disorders, average actual working week, number of alcoholics) was carried out for the regions among rural, urban populations and total. We use panel data for 80 Russian regions covering the period from 2005 to 2018. We apply the generalized method of moments (GMM) using Stata 14 statistical package. The empirical analysis demonstrates negative impact of the amount of individual debt on the number of suicides in the regions of Russia, which contradicts the results of similar studies conducted for developed economies. At the same time, some results obtained earlier in domestic and foreign studies have been confirmed, including an existence of a parabolic (U-shaped) dependence between the length of working hours and the suicide rates in the regions of the Russian Federation. In addition, there is a direct connection between an increase in the committed suicides and an increase in divorce rates and the number of patients with mental disorders. Moreover, we find out that the rise in unemployment rate and alcohol consumption leads to an increase in the number of committed suicides. This effect is especially perceptible among the people living in rural areas

Spatial Diffusion of Digital Innovations: Trends, Problems and Prospects of Empirical Research

The aim of the study was to generalize the world experience of studying the spatial diffusion of digital innovations in order to determine trends in changing priorities, existing problems and possible prospects for empirical research. With the help of the author’s semantic search algorithm, approximately eighty journal articles published in the last twenty years were found in eight bibliographic databases. The use of a moving average and biproportional indices for quantitative analysis of the array of articles revealed four upward trends: an increase in the average annual number of publications on the subject under consideration, increased attention to the deployment of broadband communications, the impact of spatial diffusion on economic growth and the use of regions as territorial units for studying diffusion processes. An informal analysis of the articles led to the identification of five key problems of modern research: a significant discrepancy between the year of publication and the last year of the process under study, analysis of a limited number of digital innovations, lack of a comprehensive understanding of the joint spatial diffusion of several innovations, the dominance of the idea of the homogeneity for the initial territorial units and the unexplored system of factors contributing to or hindering the spread of digital innovations. Comparing the existing experience of studying the spatial diffusion of digital innovations with similar studies of other types of innovations allowed identifying five promising areas for further research: the use of big data; expanding the set of models used with the subsequent creation of a system of methods; the study of hierarchical, network and other methods of spatial diffusion; the definition of spatial innovation waves with an explanation of the reasons for the formation of territorial barriers and filters; creation of a theory of the spatiotemporal spread of digital innovations based on the generalization of empirical research. The necessity of determining the scope of application of the results obtained in diffusion studies outside of regional economic policy is noted

Human Capital and Regional Economic Growth in Russia

This study examines the contribution of human capital accumulation to regional economic growth using panel data for 82 subjects of the Russian Federation over 2002–2019. This paper aims to test the hypothesis that in the long-run equilibrium there exists a connection between economic growth and human capital accumulation in the regions of Russia. From the point of view of econometrics, it would mean that we should refute the hypothesis that there is no cointegration of time series describing the aforementioned variables. General theoretical framework was drawn from the neoclassical growth theory, and panel data econometrics suggested the appropriate empirical methodology. Pooled mean group and fully modified least squares estimators were applied to an autoregressive distributed lags model based on the Solow model. The results indicate that accumulation of human capital has a positive and statistically significant long-term impact on the rate of growth of per capita income and that these variables are cointegrated. Such calculations allow us to make the following conclusions: per capita GRP is cointegrated with physical and human capital on the regional level. The cointegrating equation ‘explained’ more than 90% of per capita GRP variance. Human capital accumulation had a significant positive impact on per capita GRP growth in the long run; such impact exceeded the impact of physical capital accumulation. The positive impact of human capital accumulation on per capita GRP growth surpassed the negative elasticity of growth GRP by the amount of resource excluded from the real sector to provide support to students and maintain the regional education system. The paces at which regional economies were heading towards the steady state differed which is an evidence that there exist an incredible manifold of ways and means for regions to adjust to disbalancies