Karl Marx was certain that his theory of exploitation provided the scientific explanation of the age-old conflict between wealth and poverty, a conflict that has existed throughout the history of mankind.

In the end of 2012 the Russian economy entered a period of permanently declining growth rates. The paper provides a thorough analysis of the labor market performance under these new conditions. We explain why despite economic stagnation its basic characteristics — labor force participation,...

The authors examine the relationship between the forms of ownership and wages. It uses a unique dataset that includes over 700 thousands worker observations and allows identifying narrowly defined occupations and industries. The analysis based on the estimation of the Mincerian type earnings...

The article provides a thorough critique of the conventional wisdom that in the Russian economy of the first decade of 2000, labor compensation has been increasing much faster than productivity. Relying upon both official statistics and the findings of business surveys, the author concludes that...

The efficiency of the labour market critically depends on the design of its institutions with employment protection legislation (EPL) playing a special role here. However, since formal laws can be observed or ignored to varying degrees, the actual enforcement regime shapes incentives and...

In order to remain competitive, firms need to keep the quantity and composition of jobs close to the optimal for their given output. Since the beginning of the transition period, Russian industrial firms have been widely reporting that the quantity and composition of hired labor is far from...

The impact of the ownership factor on the economic behavior of enterprises is a condition of the fact that shareholders possess the right to control the activity of the firm. From this standpoint, an exceedingly important issue is in whose hands ownership lies and how fully it can be realized in...

The paper provides a throughout statistical portrait of human capital the Russian culture using micro-data of the Russian surveys of wages by occupations conducted by Rosstat. Within the cultural activities author discerns three main branches: movies; entertainment (theatres, music etc.); other...

The article explores occupational wage differentiation in connection with basic individual characteristics (gender, age, education, experience) of employees. The study is based on data from the large and unique cross-section wage survey which was conducted in 2005. The authors start with...

The paper provides new survey evidence on effects of concentrated ownership upon investment and performance in Russian industrial enterprises. Authors trace major changes in their ownership profile, assess pace of post-privatization redistribution of shareholdings and provide evidence on...