Why are informal practices still prevalent in Russia? -- Chernyi piar : dirty campaigning and the workings of Russian democracy -- Kompromat : the use of compromising information in informal politics -- Krugovaia poruka : sustaining the ties of joint responsibility -- Tenevoi barter : shadow...

The paper analyzes the phenomenon of the BRICS group and its transformation into BRICs. From the first Summit, whose final declarations were mainly centered on economic, financial and commercial themes, the group attention has broadened its horizons, as to encompass health, agriculture,...

Intro -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Why Are Informal Practices Still Prevalent in Russia? -- 2. Chernyi Piar: Manipulative Campaigning and the Workings of Russian Democracy -- 3. Kompromat: The Use of Compromising Informationin Informal Politics --...

Social interactions determine many economic behaviors, but information on social ties does not exist in most publicly available and widely used datasets. We present results on the identification of social networks from observational panel data that contains no information on social ties between...