• L. Grigoryev, E. Buryak, A. Golyashev — The Second Start of Transformation in Ukraine?

• E. Andreyashchenko, A. Zazdravnykh — On the Methodology of Cartel Agreements Analysis
• A. Bereznoy — Business Model Innovation in Competitive Strategy of Large Corporations
• E. Sokolova — Economic Factors of Competition Development in Russian Gas Industry
• I. Andrievskaya, M. Semenova — Does Banking System Transparency Enhance Bank Competition? Cross-Country Evidence

• O. Poldin, M. Yudkevich — Impact of Merit-based Financial Aid on Student Achievement

• B. Milanovic — The Return of "Patrimonial Capitalism": A Review of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century

• V. Maltseva — Evaluation of State Support for Agriculture Based on WTO Methodology (The Case of Ural Region)

Abstracts

The paper describes the operational mechanism of monetary policy of the Central Bank of Russian Federation under the inflation targeting regime. Special focus is made on interconnections between interest rates as operational targets, liquidity and foreign exchange interventions. The paper also discusses how monetary­ policy goals can be formulated in the current environment.

JEL: Е52.
Keywords: Russia, central bank, monetary policy, inflation targeting.

This article examines fundamental questions of monetary policy in the context of challenges to the national security of Russia in connection with the imposition of economic sanctions by the US and the EU. It is proved that the policy of the Russian monetary authorities, particularly the Central Bank, artificially limiting the money supply in the domestic market and pandering to the export of capital, compounds the effects of economic sanctions and plunges the economy into depression. The article presents practical advice on the transition from external to domestic sources of long-term credit with the simultaneous adoption of measures to prevent capital flight.

JEL: E52, E58, E59.
Keywords: the base rate, monetary policy, stagflationary trap.

The Ukrainian socio-economic crisis has been developing for years and resulted in the open socio-political turmoil and armed conflict. The Ukrainian population didn’t meet objectives of the post-Soviet transformation, and people were disillusioned for years, losing trust in the state and the Future. The role of workers’ remittances in the Ukrainian economy is underestimated, since the personal consumption and stability depend strongly on them. Social inequality, oligarchic control of key national assets contributed to instability as well as regional disparity, aggravated by identity differences. Economic growth is slow due to a long-term underinvestment, and prospects of improvement are dependent on some difficult institutional reforms, macro stability, open external markets and the elites’ consensus. Recovering after socio-economic and political crisis will need not merely time, but also governance quality improvement, institutions reform, the investment climate revival — that can be attributed as the second transformation in Ukraine.

JEL: O15, O21, O52, P21, P23, P26.
Keywords: Ukraine, development, economic crisis, transition.

This article is an attempt of summarizing key economic approaches to cartel agreements analysis, its stability, ways of estimating social consequences of cartel agreements. It is alleged that the traditional way of understanding the cartels’ role as completely negative is not accurate; this type of inter-corporate agreements may also bring positive effects on industrial markets. Typical limits of analytical­ apparatus, contradictions that appear while interpreting results of specific economic models are also represented in the article, as well as sub­stantiation of a discrete role of pricing factor within the analysis of anti-competitive agreements.

JEL: B41, D43, L41, L44.
Keywords: cartel, anti-competitive agreements, economic methods of analysis, consequences estimation, competition policy.

The article analyzes one of the key instruments of today’s competition of large corporate entities — business model innovation. The author provides his own interpretation of the business model definition, dwells upon characteristic features of innovative business models as an effective competitive tool at contemporary very volatile markets, discloses main directions of business innovations and difficulties of their implementation. The article also reveals their role as key drivers of game-changing industry shifts. The conclusion is made that business model development and implementation are becoming the new strategic imperative for most of the players of modern global competition.

JEL: D21, F23, L20.
Keywords: large corporations, business model, business innovation, global competition, competitive strategy, corporate organization.

The article analyzes economic factors of competition development in Russian gas industry. The analysis is conducted on the basis of comparison of structural characteristics of competition with peculiarities of industrial markets in different stages of production process in the gas industry. The conclusion about the necessity to keep vertical integration with competition in the industry is maintained with the analysis of alternative opportunities of provision of the open access to pipelines for independent extracting companies.

JEL: L11, L41, L43, L78, L95, L98.
Keywords: gas industry, Gazprom, natural monopoly restructuring.

There seems to be a consensus among regulators and scholars that in order to improve the functioning of a banking system and to stimulate bank competition, it is necessary to raise the level of bank information transparency. To test the hypothesis that greater bank information disclosure is associated with lower market power and lower concentration in the banking system, we use country-level data covering 213 countries all over the world. The period under consideration includes the years 2001, 2005 and 2010, which correspond to the years of the World Bank’s Banking Regulation and Supervision Survey rounds. Our findings do not always support the conventional wisdom: countries with higher levels of transparency have lower levels of bank concentration, while the link between transparency and competition is less pronounced. Moreover, the effect from information disclosure declines with an increase of bank risks.

JEL: F01, G21, G28.
Keywords: banking system, transparency, competition, concentration.

Some Russian universities provide tuition fee discount to their students conditioned on their academic achievement. The paper examines the impact of this type of financial aid on student performance. The amount of this discounts for the first academic year depends on the admission test results, and its extension for the second year depends on the student’s academic achievement in the first year. Using regression discontinuity design and quantile regression, we show that financial aid stimulates the performance of those fee-paying students, who are in the upper part of the grade-point-average distribution.

JEL: I22, I23.
Keywords: higher education, incentives, financial aid, discontinuity design.

Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty — one of the most widely discussed economic books in the last decade — provides a unified theory of the functioning of the capitalist economy by linking theories of economic growth and functional and personal income distributions. It argues, based on the long-run historical data series, that the forces of economic divergence (including rising income inequality) tend to dominate in capitalism. It regards the twentieth century as an exception to this rule and proposes policies that would make capitalism sustainable in the twenty-first century.

JEL: D31, D33, E25, N10, N30, P16.
Keywords: capital, inequality, economic growth, distribution of income, capitalism.

The article deals with the state support for agriculture­ in Russia according­ to WTO methodology on the Ural region example. WTO matrix of agricultural policy instruments, expert assessments and survey are used. The author proposes possible ways of transforming Russian state ­support for agriculture according to WTO obligations based on foreign practice.

JEL: F13, Q18, Q28.
Keywords: agricultural policy, WTO, state support, agriculture, Ural region.