2005. vol. 9. No. 4

The results of the scheduled seventh annual analysis undertaken by author’s to survey the activities of leasing companies in the Russia indicate that the year 2004 was most successful for the leasing business. According to my evaluation, the privileges obtained by the users of the leased equipment enable them to eventually reduce the expenditures by 10–20% as compared to other funding arrangements used for technical upgrading of Russian enterprises. The survey undertaken by me the most important trends in the change of the leasing market structure, and made it possible to determine the sources of funding the leasing operations and the most essential changes in the leasing financing structure. Securitization of finance leases may soon become an attractive business. However, appropriate laws and regulations should be approved to reduce such securitization to practice. Growth of sales of lease contracts became the first step in that direction. In 2003–2004, several major Russian leasing companies issued securities to increase financing for their leasing projects. In Russia, like anywhere in the world, leasing is done by people with fantasy. Presently, several dozens of various leasing schemes are used in the Russian market in compliance with the legal business rules. These permit using various combinations in the relations of the partners to reduce taxation and, therefore, the cost of leasing, and to attract cheaper funding.Russian leasing companies while implementing financial leasing transactions render about 40 additional services to their clients va-rious in volume and importance. We believe this to be a very important distingui-shing feature of the domestic leasing market. The leasing companies that work on projects related to the supply of large expensive process equipment provide to their clients a complex of logistical services aimed at ensuring an uninterrupted flow of commodities, including extremely complicated operations to deliver equipment to the lessees. Author worked up pricing strategies for leasing in Russia, i.e. lease service capacity or serviceability. As per my estimations, in 2004 half the cost of the national market of leasing services in Russia was distributed among 11 leasing companies. In a number of European countries, according to LESEUROPE, the similar indicator showing the level of oligopoly in leasing was higher as compared with the Russian one. I am thought it appropriate to check the leasing business concentration level in terms of the Herfindahl–Hirschman (HHI) index, too. The estimation undertaken by me indicated that overall in Russia HHI in 2004 was non-concentrated.

This article examines the institute of minimum wage in developed and transition economies and in a number of the developing countries as well. The primary goal of the study is to find out what social and economic goals can be reached using the institute of minimum wage and what limitations this instrument have. The special attention is paid to mechanism of minimum wage fixing, which differs conside­rably in different countries. One of the sections explores the Keitz index dynamics during the last thirty years. One of the important questions is the possible impact of the institute of minimum wage on the labour market. The author considers the mechanism of transmission of the minimum wage increases on the employment and unemployment. The paper also contains the results of the empirical research. The experience of many countries witnesses that large increases in minimum wage level lead to the stagnation of the employment, especially of the disadvantaged groups. The negative effect is larger for the companies with higher share of labour costs and more active use of unqualified labour, that is small businesses and agricultural enterprises. One of the main conclusions is that the minimum wage is not an effective tool of the poverty reduction as the majority of the recipients live in households of average and upper average income.

The present paper proposes a critical survey of literature about the approximation of institutional variables in empirical studies on economic growth, trade and investment. We also discuss econometric problems linked to institutional variables and propose a brief review of existing databases for institutional approximation.

Migration is one of the most remarkable phenomena of the whole human history. Demographic growth, technological changes, political conflicts and wars were always accompanied by significant populations’ movements. In XX century the meaning of migration for social life, economy and politics increased rapidly. The aim of this paper is to present a brief review of the most interesting and well-based approaches to migration process, to describe an evolution of «migration theories» from a very simple model of human capital to modern complex econometric systems. The second point is to analyze the migration policy of different countries. The theoretical sentences are completed by relevant statistical data and empirical examples that promote a better understanding.