2019. vol. 23. No. 2

The study considers the evolution of wages of Russian workers over their life cycle. There is a large stock of evidence for developed countries that wages grow over age monotonically though with diminishing rate. Wage declines, if they take place, occur late in working life and are not large in magnitude. This shape of the profile is considered a stylized fact and has got explanation in a few influential economic theories, among which the human capital theory plays a leading role. However, recent studies exploiting data from less developed countries challenge universality of the monotonically rising shape. Some empirical evidence from Russia also raise doubts that this pattern is universal for all.

This study uses various data sets for 2005–2015 to explore wage growth over age in Russia. All data sources suggest that the Russian age-wage profile looks «substandard». Wage stops growing by age 40 and starts declining fast after. The paper considers age-related changes in various components of the human capital. Among them are the level of formal education, incidence and intensity of participation in post-school training programs, development of cognitive and non-cognitive skills, the utilization of acquired occupational skills in everyday work. None of these components shows a monotonic rise that could contribute to shaping the age-wage profile as more «standard». Of course, deviation of the observed shape from the expected one can be driven by cohort differences, not by age ones. Though a robust separation of age, cohort and period effects deserves a special scrutiny, the evidence presented in the paper suggests that the age effect is likely to persist.

Economic, technological, ecological changes significantly adjust structure of power. Based on a regression analysis on 215 projects, solar and wind energy is defined of density of the relationship between factors influencing the investment (construction time and power stations, the number of households, that received electricity, emission of carbon gas power plants location on land, offshore). As a result of the determined significance per kilowatt capacity input; reduction of gas emissions per kilowatt; decrease due to the investments of the emission of one ton of CO₂. Based on a comparison of actual data refuted the prevailing stereotype and proved that the subsidies per ton of oil equivalent consumption of fossil energy sources exceed renew able energy grant. Leasing, being one of the most complex financial instruments, successfully established itself in many sectors of the economy. The article presents a new methodology for determining the socio-economic efficiency of leasing in renewable energy. Leasing renewable energy statistics is generated in Europe and the calculations saved lives, spending on health and the environment related to the replacement of fossil energy with renewable sources and emissions into the atmosphere harmful substances. Used in article database includes data on renewable energy projects; analytical and statistical reports BP Statistical Review of World Ener­gy; Renewables Global Status Report (REN21); Bloomberg New Energy Finance – New Energy Outlook; World Leasing Yearbook; Leaseurope Annual Reports; International Energy Agency; the results of the authors' surveys of the leasing market in Russia.

This paper examines the impact of the Russia-related international news tonality on the market ruble exchange rate (in the US dollar). The dataset features 162 259 news texts from the Thomson Reuters agency, dated from January 10, 2012, to May 30, 2018. The texts are combined into 5 thematic groups: business, market, world, policy and common. To calculate the text tonality, the “bag of words” method and 5 different lexicons were used, as well as the inertia effect of the news impact on the market participants behavior was taken into account. The econometric methodology consisted of two steps: the selection of potentially significant explanatory variables based on the elastic net regression and the estimation of the ARMAX-GARCH model. As a result of modeling, it was confirmed that the dynamics of oil prices significantly affect the market ruble exchange rate, while the Bank of Russia monetary policy tool – the interbank lending rate RUONIA – was not effective in the period studied. The tonality of the news, along with the fundamental economic factors, has a systematic impact on the ruble exchange rate, which nevertheless depends on their subject matter: the most important are business news, while political messages in the media do not statistically influence the market ruble exchange rate. The obtained results are potentially applicable for the ruble exchange rate forecasting by investors, the Bank of Russia, commercial banks, investment funds and other professional market participants.

Traditionally, carbon tax and cap-and-trade system are considered to be the main incentive-based instruments to tackle greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, scientific and political discussions often neglect the role of other energy taxes that restrict the use of fossil fuels and implicitly put the price on carbon. However, the impact of any fiscal instrument on emissions does not solely depend on value and quality of the price signal (tax rate and tax base) but is subject to the scale of its application, i.e. the coverage of emissions. In most countries, other energy taxes (e.g. excises for motor fuels) historically have a wider institutional basis, cover a larger number of polluting entities in comparison to carbon tax or cap-and-trade, which started to develop rapidly only recently.

The objective of the present research is to compare the contribution of «direct» price signals (carbon tax and cap-and-trade) to greenhouse gas emissions reduction against the backdrop of «indirect» ones (other energy taxes). On the basis of data for 30 European countries in 1995–2016, several fixed-effects panel regressions were estimated. The results indicate that the impact of other energy taxes on carbon intensity is twice as high as the impact of «direct» price signals. However, the impact of the «direct» price signals tends to increase with the time. The estimation made for 2005–2016 shows that even though both «direct» and «indirect» price signals had significant negative impact on carbon intensity, neither of them was stronger than the other.

The impact of government ownership of a firm’s equity has generated much discussion in finance, economics, and politics. Extant literature provides evidence of both positive and negative effect of government ownership on the market value of firms with multiple reasons in favor of both effects. There has also been re search on how such effects may differ in different markets. This paper aims to explore value-relevance in Russian financial markets. We are exploring the relationship between government ownership of a firm’s equity on its market value in Russia with the view of answering the research question of how investors in Russia perceive the fact and degree of government ownership on equity measured through the market value of equity. We are using a sample of 159 Russian listed companies to identify relationships between market value and government ownership of equity. Previous studies support a positive relationship between such variables, however evidence from Russian listed firms proves otherwise. We find little statistically significant evidence of such association in the market in general, how ever the industry effect proved to be significant; we find that government control is severely penalized in manufacturing, while rewarded in service sectors; this effect also depends on the concentration of government ownership. This research con­nects to the efficient market hypothesis (EMH).