2018. vol. 22. No. 2

This paper evaluates the rate of educational assortative mating and its impact on income inequality in Russia. We use data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey – Higher School of Economics (RLMS-HSE) for 1995–2015. Our findings suggest that the Russian marriage market is characterized by positive assortative mating at all levels of education. It means that marriages occur among individuals with the same level of education more frequently than it would be expected under random matching with respect to education. The level of educational assortative mating has not changed in the last two decades: the observed decline is statistically insignificant. The lack of a strong trend of assortative mating can be explained by substantial heterogeneity in developments across education sub-groups. Assortative mating has been declining over time for university graduates, whereas individuals with low level of education had growing incentives to sort themselves into educationally homogeneous marriages. Changes in assortative mating had little effect on the level of household income inequality. The effect has been increasing over time but still remains below the estimates obtained for developed countries. If marriages were formed randomly across time the counterfactual Gini for couples’ incomes would be lower than the actual one on average by 1,3%. The effect has been stronger and inequality-enhancing at the top of the distribution. At the same time, educational assortative mating had neutral or even equalizing for couples at the bottom of the distribution. Economic shocks were found to amplify the effect of assortative mating on inequality in both parts of the distribution.

Causes and consequences of the so-called NEET status (Not in Employment, Educationor Training) are one of the popular foreign areas of youth labour markets research. NEET youth are one of the most vulnerable categories of the non-employed. Representatives of this group are common recipients of social benefits from the state and depend on the money transfers from relatives. The probability of finding a permanent job for young people who previously were in the NEET status is reduced. They have higher risks of informal employment, problems with physical and mental health, propensity to criminal activities and substance abuse, low level of trust in social institutions. Despite the relevance of the study, youth transitions between school, employment and different types of NEET status (so-called NEET-unemployment and NEET-inactivity) are relatively rare analyzed on panel data.

Present study introduces the flows of young people entering and leaving the NEET group in the Russian labour market as the focus of the research for the first time. This topic is particularly relevant for Russia since, according to Rosstat, the share of Russian NEET youth in 2010–2015 was 12–15% of all young people aged 15–24 years. The source of the data for the study is the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey – Higher School of Economics (RLMS-HSE) for 2000–2016. The main findings of the study are based on the analysis of the transition matrices and the results of the estimations of dynamic multinomial logit regression models on the subsamples of men and women aged 15–24 years. According to the results received the share of NEET youth in Russia by 2016 was about 15% of all young people aged 15–24 years. At the same time, during the economic crisis, the growth in the share of NEET youth was mainly due to the increase of NEET-unemployment. The share of the latter in 2015–2016 reached the maximum values for the entire period analyzed (9–10% of all young people aged 15–24 years). Despite the heterogeneous nature of the Russian NEET, the risks of falling into this state are mainly associated with education – either with its insufficient level (in the case of inactive NEETs) or with its low quality (in the case of unemployed NEETs). Thus, higher education in Russia is as sociated with the greatest risks of NEET unemployment, while the risks of transition to the state of NEET-inactivity are concentrated among those who received vocational education after incomplete secondary school or after graduating from high school. Changes in the marital status are also among important factors of NEET state. However the probability of finding a job next year reaches 50% for unemployed NEETs, and about 30–40% for inactive NEETs. Thus, NEET status at the moment does not seem to be unequivocal hopeless «trap» for Russian youth.

This paper measures the effects of the Russian Government and the Bank of Russia’s verbal interventions on the USD/RUB exchange rate. To take into account the verbal interventions by the Bank of Russia, we analyze the announcements made by the members of its Board of Directors and by the press-service. Concerning the communication policy of the Government, we search for the announcements by the President of the Russian Federation, the representatives of the President Administration and the members of the Government of the Russian Federation. The analysis of the verbal interventions from 2014 to 2016 reveals the main characteristics of the information policy of the Russian authorities. For example, the most announcements by the representatives of the Bank of Russia contain positive information about financial stability, while the most announcements by the Government representatives refer to the GDP dynamics. The information policy about the inflation dynamics is consistent among different policy authorities. The representatives of both the Bank of Russia and the Government have published the same number of announcements with similar content. In order to reveal the relationship between verbal interventions and the ruble exchange rate, we use daily data and estimate an ARMA(0,0)-GARCH(1,1) model. According to the results, the returns of the USD/RUB exchange rate were higher when the Bank of Russia communicated lower inflation risks and higher RUB devaluation in 2014–2016. The USD/RUB returns were also higher when the representatives of the Russian Government announced the higher exchange rate volatility and the higher deficit. The days when the Russian Government communicated higher inflation risks or stricter fiscal policy were characterized by lower USD/RUB returns.

The paper offers a new method of decomposition of GDP and its elements. It is based on the idea that every component can be represented as a combination of a smaller number of ag­gregates. The proposed method has a range of important theoretical properties that insure its correctness and reproduces the statistics with very high quality. The theoretical reasoning of the procedure is presented, 3-product decomposition is analysed. Decomposition of indicators in both current and fixed prices is presented.

The proposed decomposition has a range of advantages compared to earlier procedures. First, it does not link any model products to aggregates, observed in statistics. Second, it decomposes the statistics into a higher number of unobserved products, and these products and their prices can be reasonably interpreted. Finally, the important distinction from earlier procedures in non-linearity in real prices.

Apart from that, the paper proposes a method of harmonization of GDP and its elements statistics that is needed to work with these indicators after two recent methodology changes.

The paper suggests a new approach to short-term forecasting of oil production at shale plays in the USA. It is based on the analytical solution of the differential equation of oil production. The concept of the production potential is introduced, which corresponds to the exponential, harmonic and hyperbolic curves of the base oil production from an individual well. The production potential is estimated using a stationary solution of the differential equation. Its value answers the question: how much production will be achieved over time, all other things being equal (a constant number of drilling rigs, their productivity and the rate of decline in basic production).

It is shown that production at US shale plays is best described by a harmonic potential with a lag of 6 months. Usage of this potential reduces the differential equation to the Riccati equation that allows expressing the solution of the Cauchy problem in elementary functions.

The robustness of the proposed forecasting method of oil production was investigated using the sensitivity analysis to the change of WTI oil price. It is established that the potential and the volume of shale oil production are proportional to the square root of the number of drilling rigs, and, therefore, to the oil price. This may indicate overestimated expectations of growth in the shale oil production for researchers who run the linear models. This could lead to understated expectations of oil future price.

The accuracy of the production forecast is estimated on a retrospective sample from January 2015 to March 2017. The averaged relative error for 6-and 12-month horizons was 1,5% and 3,3%, respectively. These characteristics are 45% better than the accuracy achieved using EIA data.

Article is devoted to evolution of forest economics of Russia and Finland and problems of increase in effective forest management in Russia. The purpose of work consists in assessment of tendencies of development of the economic relations in forestry formed within national forest laws and the control systems corresponding to them, on the example of two countries: Russia and Finland. The object of research are the economic relations in forestry formed by national control systems and the forest legislation of the explored countries. The subject of research are economic results of administrative activity of forest management structures of Russia and Finland.

The research is based on system approach to the problems determined by the work purpose with use of methods of the historical analysis, comparison, modern concepts of steady management, foreign and domestic experience of the economic relations in forestry.

Novelty of a research: regularities are revealed and tendencies of development of the forest economics formed on the one hand by supply and demand on forest production and services and, on the other hand, national control systems and the forest legislation of Russia and Finland are estimated.

Forest management is considered from the point of view of ecosystem approach. Ranging of degree of the importance of forest ecosystem services in Russia and Finland, proceeding from a contribution to a gross internal product of each service and assessment of the population is carried out. At assessment of efficiency of forest management the material products received from the woods are the basis.

An assessment of economic efficiency of forest management in Finland, by comparison of expenses and income of forestry is given. The defining factor in formation of the economic relations in forestry of Finland – the standards of the forest right having pronounced ecological contents, traditions, customs. The regularity of development of the economic relations in forestry of Finland which consists in transition from imperative methods of management to dispositive, granting an option of methods of managing to private forest business is revealed.

Negative tendencies in forest management of Russia after the beginning of large-scale administrative reform in the country are analysed. Expenses of the federal budget of the last fifteen years steadily exceed receipts from forest exploitation. In Russia imperative methods of management are based on resource approach, focused on the monetary purposes, don't consider a set of forest ecosystem services.

Results of a research can be used by the scientific organizations which are engaged in forecasting of development of branch economies, the forest companies when forming the economic relations in forestry.

Researches can be continued in the direction of assessment of forest ecosystem services and their inclusion in the system of the economic relations in forestry at the national and international levels.