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ESCIRRU

Economic and Social Consequences of Industrial Restructuring in Russia and Ukraine - ESCIRRU

Project Motivation

The economic transition in Russia and Ukraine has important economic and social consequences until today. Despite much scientific interest in this topic in recent years, there was no integrated attempt to shed light on the interdependence of economic and social changes in Russia and Ukraine to date. ESCIRRU is a EU-funded international research project aiming to fill this gap. The project started in February 2006 and will last until January 2009.


Project Goals

(i) To analyse how the restructuring and civil conversion processes affected the performance of the industrial sector in these emerging market economies.

(ii) To analyse the socio-economic impact of these processes at the household level.

(iii) To increase the data foundations and the research potential of several partner institutions in Russia and the Ukraine.


Research Work Packages

The project is structured into nine work packages. Seven of these work packages focus directly on research activities, one work package is related to data collection, and one work package is focussed on the management of the project. Each of the seven research work packages is led by one participating institution and cover the following topics:

R&D in Russian and Ukrainian Industry (led by Heriot-Watt University, United Kingdom)

This working package investigates the impact of R&D efforts on Russian and Ukrainian economies with a special emphasis on productivity development.

Labour reallocation and creative destruction in former Soviet Union (led by Central European University Budapest Foundation, Hungary)

The goal is to identify and analyse the relationship between labour reallocation and productivity growth, focusing on issues of technological change and entrepreneurship.

Industrial restructuring and labour market institutions and outcomes in Russia (led by The State University - Higher School of Economics, Russian Federation)

The task of this work group is to analyse how restructuring enhances more flexible employment relations, how restructuring affects the skill mix of the work force and finally how labour institutions impact upon restructuring.

The firm, internal labour market and displaced workers in economic transition (led by Heriot-Watt University, United Kingdom)

This work package focuses on the issues of restructuring and downsizing. The goal is to analyse internal labour markets. Gender issues will be specifically addressed in this work package. In addition, the employed data sets lend themselves to sociological research on internal labour markets and on the fate of displaced workers.

Analysis of workers displacement in Russia and Ukraine using survey data (led by Università di Bologna, Italy)

The aim of the task group is to gain major insights into the search behaviour of displaced unemployed given that benefit levels vary widely across regions in the two countries. The work will also investigate the type of workers displaced by the transition process and the costs associated with that upheaval across Russia and Ukraine.

Poverty and coping strategies in Ukraine (led by German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin), Germany)

The research analyses the determinants of poverty in Ukraine and the coping strategies adopted by different socio-economic groups of the population. The goal is to improve the design of poverty alleviation policies in Ukraine.

Restructuring and social safety nets in Russia and Ukraine (led by Center for Social and Economic Research, Poland)


Understanding the current situation of social safety nets in Russia and Ukraine and its relationship with the labour market situation is a prerequisite to designing an innovative approach to policy advice in the area of social security. Gender specific issues related to these two objectives will be explicitly considered.

ESCIRRU - a research project funded by the EU's 6th Framework Programme and managed by DIW Berlin.


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