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Regular version of the site

Papers

WHY NATIONS SUCCEED — A HUMAN CAPITAL PERSPECTIVE
[Text] : rep. at XV Apr. In
tern. Acad. Conf. on Economic and Social Development, Moscow, April 1–4, 2014 / I. Ehrlich ; Nat. Res. Univ. Higher School of Economics. — Moscow: Higher School of Economics Publ. House, 2014. — 51, [1] p. — 300 copies. — ISBN 978-5-7598-1156-5 (pbk).

This paper offers a thesis as to why the US overtook the UK and other European countries in the 20th century in both aggregate and per-capita GDP, as a case study of recent models of endogenous growth where “human capital” is the engine of growth. By human capital is meant an intangible asset, best thought of as a stock of embodied and disembodied knowledge comprising education, information, entrepreneurship, and productive and innovative skills, that are formed through investments in schooling, job training, and health, as well as through research and development projects and informal knowledge transfers. The conjecture is that the ascendancy of the US as an economic superpower in the 20th century owes in large measure to its faster human capital formation relative to the UK and “old Europe.” Whether the thesis has legs to stand on is assessed through both stylized facts and some complementary empirical tests indicating that the US led other major developed countries in schooling attainments per adult population, beginning in the latter part of the 19th century and over the 20 century, especially at the secondary and tertiary levels. While human capital is viewed as a facilitator of, and a necessary condition for, long-term economic growth, the paper argues that it is not a sufficient condition. The underlying factors driving the US ascendancy are linked to the superior rates of return which the legal and political-economic system in the US has thus far offered as rewards for individual investments in human capital and their resulting innovative and entrepreneurial accomplishments, both home-produced and imported. This approach is compared to some alternative hypotheses about the underlying factors determining the prospects of long-term success or failure in fostering a persistent, self-sustaining economic growth and development.

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HOW TO ASSESS A DEMOCRACY. WHAT ALTERNATIVES?
[Text] : rep. at XV Apr. Intern. Acad. Conf. on Economic and Social Development, Moscow, April 1–4, 2014 / L. Morlino, L. G. Carli. Nat. Res. Univ. Higher School of Economics. — Мoscow: Higher School of Economics Publ. House, 2014. — 29, [3] p. — 300 copies. — ISBN 978-5-7598-1155-8 (pbk).

The assessment of a democratic regime is a classic topic in political science, which morerecently has been attracting a lot of attention and reconsidered in different empirical perspectives. In fact, this issue has been reconsidered and reworded within empirical research as: “What is a good democracy?” or, better, “What is democratic quality?”. When looking back, at least as far as the early 1970s, the origins of our question areevident: a) if in recent decades discontent, dissatisfaction, and alienation are growing politicalphenomena in old, established democracies, the reasons for these attitudes, resulting from theperceived low quality of the regimes, are particularly salient; b) if more and more countries aredefined as democratic, the question of what the implemented regimes labelled as democraticeffectively are is more and more relevant and consequently the key question again seems tobe: what is the democratic quality of those regimes?; c) if situations of uncertainty with regardto existing regimes are growing, that is, if there are a large number of so called hybrid regimes, the problem of looking behind the façade is still relevant and how to turn these regimes intodemocracies by improving their quality is once again very salient. If we focus on the existing rich literature on democracies and democratizations, thereare at least three main streams of literature: 1) for scholars who have been working on democ-ratizations, consolidation and crisis included, the need to look behind the façade of establishedinstitutions meant addressing questions about the content and actual working of those institutions; 2) scholars of established democracies, especially those belonging to the Anglo-Saxontradition, i.e. the UK, Canada, and Australia, conducted research on so-called democratic auditing; 3)anumber of data banks, such as those of Polity IV, Freedom House, the Economist’s Intelligence Unit, the World Bank, and also the Bertelsmann Index, provide measures of aspectsrelated to democratic performance and, more generally, to the quality of democracy.

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TRACKING BUSINESS CREATION: UNDERSTANDING ORGANIZATIONAL EMERGENCE
[Text] : rep. at XV Apr. Intern. Acad. Conf. on Economic and Social Development, Moscow, April 1–4, 2014 / P. D. Reynolds ; Nat. Res. Univ. Higher School of Economics. — Moscow: Higher School of Economics Publ. House, 2014. — 31, [1] p. — 300 copies. — ISBN 978-5-7598-1154-1 (pbk).

There is substantial scholarly and practical interest in business organizations, understanding why they emerge and exploring entrepreneurship. The current conceptualizations contribute little to understanding how new firmsemerge. The Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED) researchprotocol was developed to provide reliable empirical descriptions of the process, with particular attention to the activities involved in business creation and how they are related to the creation of profitable new firms. The results indicate that substantial activity precedes profitability, that this may take manyyears and it achieved by a minority of start-up ventures. Successfully appliedto the vast majority of the world’s population, the PSED protocol illuminatesthe wide variation in entry into business creation. The empirical patterns illuminate the shortcomings of existing conceptual schemes. The disparityamount countries in the prevalence of business creation activity suggest thatpublic policies might be different for countries with different levels of businesscreation activity; it is unlikely there are any universal best practices. There is, in addition, substantial work to be done to provide a more complete understanding of business creation and its effect on the firm life course. 

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GLOBAL INCOME INEQUALITY BY THE NUMBERS: IN HISTORY AND NOW
[Text] : rep. at XV Apr. Intern. Acad. Conf. on Economic and Social Development, Moscow, April 1–4, 2014/ Nat.Res. Univ. Higher School of Economics. — Moscow : Higher Schoolof Economics Publ. House, 2014. — 27, [1] p. — 300 c opies. —ISBN 978-5-7598-1153-4 (pbk).

The paper presents an overview of calculations of global inequality, recently and over the long-run as well as main controversies and political andphiloso phical implications of the findings. It focuses in particular on the winners and losers of the most recent episode of globalization, from 1988 to 2008. It suggests that the period might have witnessed the first declinein global inequality between world citizens since the Industrial Revolution. The decline however can be sustained only if countries’ mean incomes continue to converge (as they have been doing during the past 10 years) and ifinternal (within-country) inequalities, which are already high, are kept incheck. Mean-income convergence would also reduce the huge “citizenshippremium” that is enjoyed today by the citizens of rich countries. 

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FACTORS DETERMINING A "SAFE" LEVEL OF PUBLIC DEBT
Dr. Marek Dabrowski

Lessons of the latest crises indicate importance of more accurate estimation of countries’ contingent fiscal liabilities, particularly of those relating to the stability in the financial sector. If looking into the future, a correct estimation of other contingent liabilities, particularly thoserelated to social welfare systems (implicit debt of the public pension and health systems) are of primary importance in the context of the ageing society and population decline. The seliabilities far exceed official statistics on the public debt in some counties. As a result, suchstatistics does not present an adequate picture of the nation's public debt and actual fiscalburden that will be imposed on the shoulders of the following generations of taxpayers.

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  POWER INDUSTRY IN RUSSIA — CHALLENGES OF DEVELOPMENT MODEL SELECTION
[Text] : analyt. rep. at XV Apr. Intern. Acad. Conf. on Economicand Social Development, Moscow, April 1–4, 2014 / О. G. Barkin, I. О. Volkova, I. S. Kozhukhovsky et al. ; Nat. Res. Univ. Higher Schoolof Economics. — Moscow: Higher School of Economics Publ. House, 2014. — 38, [2] p. — 300 copies. — ISBN 978-5-7598-1164-0 (pbk.)

Overall situation with Russian power industry, which has developed starting from the 1980s, necessitates changes that may stimulate higher performance of the businesses in the industry and the required fundraising.
A series of industrial reforms in the 1990s and global restructuring of power industry in 2003–2006 resulted in the dissolution of the former monopoly vertical integrated structure. Hence, most of vertical integrated businesses withdrew from the market to be replaced by new businesses with target industrial structure, which specialize in natural monopolyor competitive activities. Long-term transformations have principally leaded to new competitive wholesale power market and fund-raising forthe construction of power-generating capacities.
We must anticipate that further innovative development will change the entire model of organization and principles of control in the power industry, require reevaluation of the role and combination of development of big centralized and small distributed power-generating sources, change the way the consumers interact with centralized power system, set new requirementsfor the design of centralized power system and for the rules of powermarket functioning, which may make operation of these markets more efficient. However, this will also require new approach to industry development policy and industry control methods based on comprehensive understanding of the end consumers’ interests.

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  INFLUENCEOF CULTURE ON THEMODERNIZATIONOF RUSSIA
[Text] : rep. at XV Apr. Intern. Acad. Conf. on Economic and Social Development, Moscow, April 1–4, 2014/E. Yasin; Nat. Res. Univ. Higher School of Economics. — Moscow: Higher School of Economics Publ. House, 2014. — 62, [2] p. — 300 copies. — ISBN 978-5-7598-1166-4 (pbk).

This work, presented as a report at XV International April Conferenceof National Research University HSE, was started as a new version of the first chapter of my book published in 2002 "RussianEconomy. Sources and Panorama of Market Reforms".
The more I worked and read literature on the subject, the further I moved from the initial idea. Changes were especially significant after I read the works of E. Huntington and L. Harrison which emphasizedthe role of culture, which also includes institutions, in the development of the economy and society.
As I understand, Russia started transition from hierarchy to networkin 1861, after the Emancipation reform. Since that time it has been undergoing a painstaking process of transformation, with the Soviet experiment being its stage. It was started by people that believed in the truth of Marxist theory that adopted the collapse of market economy and its replacement by large-scale machine industry. By 1970s it became clear that Marx was mistaken: the market mechanism did not disappear, it confirmed its role in the development and globalization of the world economy. Russia managed to put an end to the Soviet experiment and puts great efforts to overcome the contradictory processes of renewal and development of the present-daymarket economy, as well as the retarding influence of long-standing traditions of hierarchy and despotism domination. These questions are dealt with in greater detail in the offered report.

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