Galina An

Abstract: Antedating but increasing with the dissolution of the USSR, there has been an enormous separation of populations within the former Soviet republics, with people returning to those nations in which their nationality is dominant. However, in the 1990s these flows were largely overshadowed by the consequences of relative economic collapse, which resulted in employment-based migration. During the past decade, stabilization has returned, and some countries – notably, Kazakhstan and Russia – have enjoyed rapid economic growth. Thus, it now possible to explore different motivations for migration, including political efforts to achieve ethnic partitions, migration in search of higher expected earnings and benefits, and migration in search of stability and less risky environments. We address these questions using a panel grouped data set on net migration between Kazakhstan and Russia for the periods 1999-2007. Standard migration literature results obtain: working age people appear ...

This paper uses high frequency aggregate housing price data from 2000 through 2017 for the minerals-rich former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan to explore price movements during boom and stagnation cycles. Kazakhstan experienced staggeringly rapid housing price growth at the outset of this period, when real prices for existing housing rose more than ten-fold in a seven-year period. Despite this rise (and subsequent decline by roughly one-third), it appears that bubble components as variously measured were small for new housing, and largely limited to 2002-04. A far larger bubble appears for sales of existing units, but unrecorded renovation expenditures may be pushing this term up. However, co-movement with vast credit expansion leads us to conclude that there is not enough evidence to support the rational speculative bubble model in Kazakhstan during 2000-2017, but we do find evidence for a policy-induced boom. What was not small was the huge rise in real housing wealth (and its like...

Antedating but increasing with the dissolution of the USSR, there has been an enormous separation of populations within the former Soviet republics, with people returning to those nations in which their nationality is dominant. However, in the 1990s these flows were largely overshadowed by the consequences of relative economic collapse, which resulted in employmentbased migration. During the past decade, stabilization has returned, and some countries – notably, Kazakhstan and Russia – have enjoyed rapid economic growth. Thus, it now possible to explore different motivations for migration, including political efforts to achieve ethnic partitions, migration in search of higher expected earnings and benefits, and migration in search of stability and less risky environments. We address these questions using a panel grouped data set on net migration between Kazakhstan and Russia for the periods 1999-2007. Standard migration literature results obtain: working age people appear to seek hig...

We examine empirically whether countries with relatively little production and export experience specialize in the production and export of more standardized and lower-technology products, and those with more production experience produce and export more recently developed and higher-technology products. Using panel data covering 127 countries and the period between 1970 and 1997, we find that export experience does help to account for the variation in export content. Exporting experience influences a country's export mix more than its production experience, suggesting that there may be a trade-induced component of learning by doing in foreign trade specialization.

ABSTRACT Vast population movements have occurred within the (former) USSR as people return to countries of ethnic origin and seek employment. These varied motives are considered in an environment of economic recovery, with migration motivations including personal security, migration in search of higher expected earnings, and migration in search of less risky economic environments. We address these questions using a panel grouped data set on net migration between Kazakhstan and Russia during 1999–2007. Predominately Slavic regions do not have higher emigration rates, controlling for demographic and economic environment, but flight from earnings risk is detected.

We examine empirically whether countries with relatively little production and export experience specialize in the production and export of more standardized and lower-technology products, and those with more production experience produce and export more recently developed and higher-technology products. Using panel data covering 127 countries and the period between 1970 and 1997, we find that export experience does help to account for the variation in export content. Exporting experience influences a country's export mix more than its production experience, suggesting that there may be a trade-induced component of learning by doing in foreign trade specialization.

Existing literature on the role of intellectual property rights (IPR) protection has painted an ambiguous picture about the size of the effects of stronger IPR on the choice of the multinational firm’s mode of entry into foreign market. Some empirical studies suggest that improving IPR in recipient countries will have higher effect on licensing, while others found larger effect on foreign direct investment (FDI). The available indices of protection only measure country-wide characteristics and do not pick inter-industry variation, while the data show significant differences in losses of US multinationals by industry. In this paper, we introduce and empirically estimate a new dimension to multinational firm’s decision to enter a foreign market—a parameter that reflects the length of positive profits that the firm can earn in various industries. We dub the estimated parameter a perceived time of rent extraction. The introduction of the time parameter allows us to differentiate the effects of stronger IPR on the entry modes in different industries and reconcile the ambiguity results in the literature. Particularly, strengthening IPR has higher impact on FDI in industries with shorter rent extraction time, while licensing is affected more than FDI in industries with longer rent extraction time.

The “border effect” in international trade refers to a situation in which there is higher volume of trade within a country compared with the volume of trade across the country's borders. Although trade economists are not surprised at the existence of a border effect, they do find the significant size of the estimated effect in the empirical literature perplexing. In