We use a new independent survey of 4000 Russian households (the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey or RLMS) to study their saving behavior. The RLMS household saving rate (12%) is less than half the official figure (29%). Despite the massive changes of the transition, the Russian household saving rate of 1994 cannot be shown to be different from that of 1976. The patterns of Russian household saving ...
In the present paper a mixed generalized estimating/pseudo-score equations (GEPSE) approach together with a distribution-free multiple imputation technique is proposed for the estimation of regression and correlation structure parameters of multivariate probit models with missing values for an ordered categorical timeinvariant variable. Furthermore, a generalization of the squared trace correlation ...
The German economy is not only affected by unification of Germany but by a significant influx of immigrants from abroad and huge migration from East to West Germany around the date of unification. Data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (GSOEP) allows one to disentangle those effects by decomposition of the Theil I(0)-Index of inequality. In addition, the paper offers insights into the transition ...
This paper analyses progress and obstacles to gas sector reform in the most important CIS-countries (Russia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan), taking a political economy perspective. This reform process is embedded in a very specific post-Soviet institutional framework stemming from the legacy of socialism. Firstly, we review the evolution of the gas sector for the period 1992-1998. The paper then ...
The ongoing change of demographic and economic structures does not undermine employment (as many believe), but this change indeed induces problems with the mandatory old-age security system in Germany. This paper discusses some popular reform proposals and concludes with another proposal which takes into account economic incentives. Especially the gerontological aim of a longer lifetime employment ...
