Christopher J Gerry

Using panel data for the period 1989-2006 we revisit the empirics of economic growth in the context of the post-communist transition. We pay particular attention to the mechanisms of causation and to the potential endogeneity of the macroeconomic stability indicators considered to be important in the existing literature. Carefully employing a variety of econometric techniques we consistently find that macroeconomic instability is bad for economic growth. We find some evidence that institutions of governance are important for economic growth through their influence on the macroeconomic environment. That is, good institutions are conducive to macroeconomic stability which in turn positively impacts upon economic growth. We also find, in contrast with other work, that investments in education have had a strong positive impact on growth in transition while other 'standard' economic growth determinants remain less important. These findings are shown to be robust to a variety of e...

The data of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey – Higher School of Economics represents one of the few nationally representative sources of household and individual data for Russia. It has been collected since 1992 and in recent years, thanks to more secure financial and logistical support, has become a resource increasingly drawn upon by scholars and students for national and cross-national studies. In this paper, we examine the extent of non-random attrition in the RLMS and discuss the circumstances under which this might give rise to biases in econometric analysis. We illustrate this with an example drawn from the health sphere.

ABSTRACT Book description: The transitional societies of the former communist countries provide a diverse setting for re-examining the inclusion and exclusion aspects of group formation. Indeed, the transition process fundamentally transformed the 'identity possibilities of the age'. Nation in Formation: Inclusion and Exclusion in Central and Eastern Europe presents a volume of essays located in the constructivist genre of approaches to the study of 'belonging' and in so doing introduces some of the new discourses of nationhood emerging in central and eastern Europe. Nation in Formation has been described by independent referees as 'a very interesting collection of papers [with a] good area coverage'. 'The ease with which the authors handle various disciplinary canons of interpretation is impressive' and 'the best situate their interpretations in a general framework of knowledge which makes them of interest not only to East Europeanists but also to general scholars of memory, identity and boundary formation'. The editors - Catherine Baker, Christopher J Gerry, Barbara Madaj, Liz Mellish and Jana Nahodilová - are all based at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies. There are twelve other contributors writing on topics including ethnonationalism in Tatarstan and Chechnya, the concept of turbofolk in Croatia, abortion in Ceauşescu's Romania and the seeds of Georgian feminism.

This paper contributes to the discussion around ex-post (increased utilisation of health care) and ex-ante (changes in health behaviours) moral hazard in supplemental private health insurance. Applying a range of methodologies to data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey—Higher School of Economics we exploit a selection mechanism in the data to compare the impact of workplace provided and individually purchased supplemental health insurance on the utilisation of health care, on a range of health behaviours and on self-assessed health. We find compelling policy-relevant evidence of ex-post moral hazard that confirms a theoretical prediction and empirical regularity found in other settings. In contrast to other empirical findings though, our data reveals evidence of ex-ante moral hazard demonstrated by clear behavioural differences between those with self-funded supplemental health insurance and those for whom the workplace finances the additional insurance. We find no evid...

Using the RLMS, this paper re-examines the nature of the gender wage gap in Russia between 1994 and 1998 taking into account the pervasiveness of Russia’s non-payment institutions. Investigating discrimination ‘bands’ at different sections of the income distribution and for various important sub-groups we found the following. Using censored regressions that capture the effect of wage arrears and payment inkind, the wage gap is larger than estimates derived using OLS. The wage gap is distributed unevenly both across the income distribution and between various sub-groups. Specifically, women at the lower end of the income distribution suffer the highest degree of discrimination. However, we find that wage arrears and payment in-kind attenuated wage discrimination, in particular amongst the lowest paid workers. The evidence seems to suggest that Russian enterprise managers assigned importance to equity considerations when allocating wage arrears and payment in-kind.

Purpose Compared with other emerging and former command economies, Russia has low levels of entrepreneurial activity and exceptionally low levels of reported entrepreneurial intentions. Drawing on the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), this paper aims to examine the determinants of entrepreneurial intentions in Russia. Design/methodology/approach Using individual level data from two waves (2013 and 2018) of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) survey, the paper presents a range of semi-nonparametric logistic regressions estimating the determinants of reported entrepreneurial intention among the Russian adult population not already engaged in entrepreneurial activity. These data allow for the first empirical exploration of the TPB in the Russian context. Findings The results provide evidence in support of two (“attitudes” and “perceived behavioural control”), from three, origins of the theory of planned behaviour. Firstly, positive attitudes towards entrepreneurship, in the form...

There is a paradox characterising the Russian health workforce. By international standards, Russia has a very high number of physicians per capita but at the same time is confronted by chronic real shortages of qualified physicians. This paper explores the reasons for this paradox by examining the structural characteristics of health workforce development in the context of the Soviet legacy and the comparative performance of other European countries. The paper uses data on comparative health workforce dynamics to argue that Russia is a European laggard, before then evaluating recent and current policies within that context. The health workforce challenges facing all low- and middle-income countries are acute, and this paper confirms this IS the case for Russia-Europe's largest country. The paper argues that the physician shortage is driven by the model of health workforce development inherited from the Soviet period, with its emphasis on quantitative rather than structural indic...

Abstract Using household panel survey data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey between 1994 and 2000, this thesis examines wage inequality, economic wellbeing and the labour market in the Russian Federation. We pay particular heed to the labour ...

Aims: Chronic disorders, such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, respiratory diseases and diabetes, are the leading cause of mortality globally, representing 68% of all recorded deaths. The incidence of chronic disease and multiple chronic disease is rising across the world, but relatively little is known about the impact of multi-morbidities on the life experiences of those individuals who encounter them. In this paper, we examine and quantify the relationship between chronic illness, multi-morbidity and the individual self-assessed health of the Russian population using individual-level Russian data and a novel quantitative technique. Methods: We apply a partial proportional odds framework to a rich data set incorporating demographic, socio-economic and health indicators in Russia. Results: We find that individuals with chronic conditions report significantly lower levels of health than those without chronic conditions, but that the strength of the effect is much more pronounced f...

As life expectancies increase and healthcare improves, increasing numbers of the population can expect to live with combinations of two or more chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Population studies suggest that more than half of older-aged adults report having multiple chronic NCDs (multimorbidities) and two-thirds of total health spending in high-income countries is accounted for by patients with multimorbidities. Beyond the need to obviate the growing burden on healthcare systems, the increasing incidence and prevalence of multimorbidity and its effects requires further investigation. Using nationally representative data from a Russian population survey, we examine the impact of chronic NCDs on self-assessed health, explore the prevalence of multimorbidity and, applying an iterative partial proportional odds estimator, examine how different combinations of chronic NCDs interact to influence self-assessed health. Confirming that there are high levels of chronic NCDs and asso...

Book description: The transitional societies of the former communist countries provide a diverse setting for re-examining the inclusion and exclusion aspects of group formation. Indeed, the transition process fundamentally transformed the 'identity possibilities of the age'. Nation in Formation: Inclusion and Exclusion in Central and Eastern Europe presents a volume of essays located in the constructivist genre of approaches to the study of 'belonging' and in so doing introduces some of the new discourses of nationhood emerging in central and eastern Europe. Nation in Formation has been described by independent referees as 'a very interesting collection of papers [with a] good area coverage'. 'The ease with which the authors handle various disciplinary canons of interpretation is impressive' and 'the best situate their interpretations in a general framework of knowledge which makes them of interest not only to East Europeanists but also to general...

Applying quantile regression techniques to Russian data we investigate the channels through which individuals experience changes in their well being. We find that married individuals in non-rural households with university-educated heads are less vulnerable to severe ...

The data of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) – Higher School of Economics represents one of the few nationally representative sources of household and individual data for Russia. These data have been collected since 1992 and in recent years, thanks to more secure financial and logistical support, have become a resource increasingly drawn upon by scholars and students for national and cross-national studies. In this paper, we examine the extent of non-random attrition in the RLMS and discuss the circumstances under which this might give rise to biases in econometric analysis. We illustrate this with an example drawn from the health sphere.