The impact of organized crime on inter-regional price disparities in Russia is estimated for each year from 1992 to 2000, and over the panel of 1993-2000, using a sample of 70 Russian regions, and that of 50 regions from the European part of the country. The relationship between prices and crime...

In the context of integrated market, a price of any product in regions depends on its demand in a national market rather than in a regional one. Applying the econometric model based on this theoretical statement, the paper assesses to degree the markets of some food products are integrated. The...

This paper evaluates the impact of economic and legal variables on wage differentials between men and women. Since Becker (1957) economists have argued that competitive markets eliminate discrimination in the long run. On the other hand, practically all countries have enacted some sort of law...

Starting a firm with expansive potential is an option for educated and high-skilled workers. This option serves as an insurance against unemployment caused by labor market frictions and hence increases the incentives for education. We show within a matching model that reducing the start-up costs...

During the 90s the increase in health spending which compared to the overall growth had taken place at a rather rapid pace experienced a worldwide slow-down. In relation to overall economic growth and the expansion of other countries' health care systems, Austria's system grew below average- a...

In this paper we propose a simple extension to the panel case of the covariate-augmented Dickey Fuller (CADF) test for unit roots developed in Hansen (1995). The extension we propose is based on a p-values combination approach that takes into account cross-section dependence. We show that the...

This paper investigates the consequences of pension reform for life-cycle unemployment and retirement. We find that (i) improving actuarial fairness in pension assessment not only boosts old age participation but also reduces unemployment among prime age workers and raises welfare; (ii)...

Recent years have seen a growing literature on the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) that resorts in a large part to cointegration techniques. The EKC literature has failed to acknowledge that such regressions involve unit root nonstationary regressors and their integer powers (e.g. GDP and GDP...

Two very different approaches are used to explore the relation between market orientation and gender wage differentials in international data. More market orientation might be related to gender wage gaps via its effects on competition in product and labor markets and the general absence of...