Irina Denisova

Who Wants to Revise Privatization? The Complementarity of Market Skills and Institutions

Using survey data from 28 transition countries, we test for the complementarity and substitutability of market-relevant skills and institutions. We show that democracy and good governance complement market skills in transition economies. Under autocracy and weak governance institutions, there is no significant difference in support for revising privatization between high- and low-skilled respondents. As the level of democracy and the quality of governance increases, the difference in the level of support for revising privatization between the high and low skilled grows dramatically. This finding contributes to our understanding of microfoundations of the politics of economic reform.

Adult mortality in Russia

This paper studies the determinants of Russian adult mortality controlling for both individual and household heterogeneity. We employ survival analysis and utilize 12 rounds of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey spanning a 14-year period. Although confirming the crucial role of excessive alcohol consumption in shaping adult mortality risks in Russia, the results are original in several other respects. We find empirical support for the importance of relative status measured in non-income terms in shaping mortality hazards. We find evidence of the influence of labour market behaviour, and sectoral and occupational mobility in particular, on longevity. The detrimental role of smoking to health is found to be comparable with the role of excess alcohol consumption, which is novel in the Russian context where the influence of smoking is typically downplayed in comparison with alcoholism. Finally, we find no micro evidence in support of the political economy view based on a positive correlation between low alcohol prices and high mortality rates found in regional-level data.

What Do Russians Think about Transition

We use data from the 2006 round of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey to describe perceptions of the Russian population about the transition process and the role of the state compared with that of free markets. We find that about one-half of the Russian population is disappointed with transition and a large majority is in favour of high state regulation and state provision of goods and services. High demand for government regulation and increased state intervention coexists with a low level of trust in government institutions and recognition of high and rising levels of corruption. The findings are consistent with the theory developed by Aghion et al. (2009). In an environment with poor social capital, private business imposes negative externalities on the society and society chooses to demand more state regulation and tolerate corruption to reduce these externalities. We also find that individual perceptions of social capital and corruption co-vary with the demand for regulation, as predicted by the theory.

Who Wants to Revise Privatization and Why? Evidence from 28 Post-Communist Countries

A 2006 survey of 28,000 individuals in 28 post-communist countries reveals overwhelming support for revising privatization, but most respondents prefer to leave firms in private hands. We examine who wants to revise privatization and why. Respondents with poor human capital and few assets support revising privatization due to a preference for state over private property. Economic hardships during transition increase support for revising privatization due to the perceived unfairness of privatization. The institutional environment has no impact on how human capital and asset ownership influence attitudes toward privatization, but does affect how economic hardships during transition shape these attitudes.

Adjustment Costs of Trade Liberalization: Estimations for the Russian Labor Market

The paper investigates adjustment costs of trade liberalization in Russia by estimating the influence of tariff policy in the 90-ies on the level and volatility of employment and wages. In particular, we study the labor demand and labor supply channels and address the following issues. First, how does labor demand by firms respond to trade shocks? Second, what is the effect of trade developments on wage dispersion across sectors? Third, what is the effect of trade changes on the wage gap between skilled and unskilled workers? We use balance sheets of Russian large and medium enterprises for 1995-2001 to estimate labor demand equations and to calculate possible changes in employment due to various shocks in output and tariffs. Our sample comprises of more than 53 thousand enterprises and is nationally and industry-level representative. The analysis of the labor supply channel is based on Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS), years 1995-2002, matched with sectoral indicators of trade liberalization. RLMS is a nationally representative panel survey of households’ members on a large number of issues. We find low magnitudes of responsiveness of the labor demand to trade shocks, both through the indirect effect of output changes and directly through the influence of tariffs and import penetration. This suggests that the adjustment costs to expected trade liberalization in the form of changes in industrial labor demand should not be high. We also find that trade liberalization does not have a significant effect on wages. It is likely that tariff reduction and trade liberalization would lead to only slight increase in the wage differentials between skilled and unskilled labor. It is obtained that there is no significant effect of tariffs on wages and wage premiums. Therefore, no significant evidence for the claim that “workers in more protected industries earn relatively more” is found. The latter implies that workers would not lose much after further trade liberalization provided they could move to trade exposed industries. The increase in tariff levels is likely to be associated with the increase in wage gap between skilled and unskilled labor. But the evidence for this conclusion is not very strong, because the industry affiliation does not explain much of the wage variation between skilled and unskilled workers. Overall, the adjustment costs of anticipated trade liberalization are likely to be much smaller than expected as the analysis of the influence of previous trade shocks on the Russian economy shows.

Alcoholism and the Russian Mortality Crisis

Life expectancy is the key aggregated indicator of a country’s well-being along with gross domestic product and living standards. While Russia approaches the group of developed countries in terms of per capita GDP, it is strikingly different in terms of the living standards and the dynamics of life expectancy. Thus, life expectancy among males in Russia has not only not increased since the 1970s, but has dropped to barely above 60 years (Fig.1). The low living standards and lack of improvement in life expectancy dynamics in Russia are in contrast with the experience of the majority of developed countries and countries with transitional economies. Thus, male life expectancy at birth in Finland has increased from 66 years in 1970 to 76 years in 2007, in Norway from 71 to 77 years and in Sweden from 72 to 78 years during the same period. In the Czech Republic male life expectancy has increased from 66 to 68 years. Female life expectancy in these countries reveals comparable dynamics. Russia has still to go into an upward trend (both for men and for women) characteristic of all the developed and the majority of the developing countries.