2011. vol. 15. No. 2

A general description in the form of an iterative procedure of methods implementing the Single Transferable Vote (STV) is given. Woodall’s axiomatics for ordinal proportional representation systems is examined. New axioms for STV are constructed with modification of quota. The new definition of quota improves the theoretical properties of the procedure. A new method is proposed based on STV and the new definition of the quota. A theorem is proved that this method is the only one satisfying these axioms. This method called the weighted inclusive Gregory method with modified quota and random equiprobable choice of the winning coalition on each iteration. Results are extended to the methods that transfer a fractional number of votes.

In the present paper we made an attempt to check the hypothesis of emergence of negative correlation between the unemployment and inflation in Russia in 2000–2010 years. The analysis of six different price indices shows the correlation between the level of unemployment and prices growth for all indices starting from the second half of 2000-s. We also obtained estimates of NAIRU for Russia and estimates of influence of unemployment gap on inflation and wages. The results for different price measures are consistent both with each other and with results of other studies. The emergence of the correlation between the unemployment and prices can be an indicator of structural changes on the Russian labor market and its development towards the Western model.

In this paper we propose and implement a mechanism of modeling the price indices of food purchases by income groups of households. These indices could be interpreted as differentiated by income food inflation. This approach is based on the differences in prices of purchases for the income groups within each year. We provide the calculations of these indices for the RLMS data and Households Budget Survey conducted by Rosstat (HBS). We discuss possible modifications of the proposed procedure for goals of forecasting of inflation differentiated by income groups. In the result of the comparison with direct calculation of inflation separately for each income group we conclude that the proposed in the paper approach has several advantages, including lower requirements of amount of incoming information.

This paper examines the European experiences with four basic types of monetary policy regimes: 1) monetary targeting, 2) exchange-rate targeting, 3) currency board, and 4) inflation targeting. The basic theme that emerges from this analysis is that transparency and accountability are crucial to constraining discretionary monetary policy so that it produces desirable long-run outcomes. Because the devil is in the details in achieving transparency and accountability, what strategy will work best in a country depends on its political, cultural and economic institutions and its past history.

The paper focuses on the current state of economic science in Russia with a particular emphasis on the role of Russian journals in accumulation and dissemination of knowledge. We compare important quantitative characteristics of Russian and international journals in the field of economics. We also attempt to establish correspondences between the impact-factor of the Russian Science Citation Index on the one hand and the impact-factors of RePEc and Web of Science databases on the other hand.
Using the EconLit database we analyze publications of Russian economists, who can be regarded, according to a number of criteria, as most active researchers, in international journals. Among our main conclusions are low quality of Russian economic journals and low recognition of them in the world, a limited number of Russian  economists who are actively publishing in international journals, with most of them  concentrated in few institutions such as New Economic School, Central Economics and Mathematics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Higher School of  Economics. Overall, our analysis confirms the widely held view that economic science in Russia is progressing rather slowly and remains poorly integrated into the world’s science.

The problems raised by A.A. Muravyov are fundamental to the prospects for the development of Russian economic science. It’s hoped that the publication of this article will not only draw attention to them, but also serve the more important purpose of consciously consolidating the scientific community in a joint search for their solutions.

The publication of A.A. Muravyev raises a number of issues related to the correlation of domestic and foreign science, which are especially acute when it comes to social disciplines. One of the basic problems is considered in more detail – the repre sentation of Russian journals in leading international citation databases. First of all, do mestic publications in perhaps the most prestigious citation database “Web of Science” (WoS) are of interest.