Background: The Slavic countries of the former Soviet Union (fSU) Russia, Belarus and Ukraine retain one of the highest suicide rates in the world, despite a gradual decline over the past decade. Aims: The present study aims to analyze whether population drinking is able to explain the dramatic fluctuations in suicide mortality in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine from the late Soviet to post-Soviet ...

The military reform in Russia is a big hoax. All military reforms in other countries have amounted to the demobilization of the old army and the creation of a new one, which is based on a different recruitment mode, doctrine, etc. This has not been done in Russia. The old army has not been disbanded, no new one has been built, and meanwhile the military are decaying somewhere in between” (Anony...

The paper applies concepts of population dynamics to the evolution of communication technologies. The dynamics of voice communication technologies in the Czech and Slovak Republics in 1948-2009 are examined via the Lotka-Volterra equations. Fixed lines and mobile phones are considered predatory technologies hunting for their ‘prey’ – voice service subscribers. Each technology squeezes out carry...

Payments in kind pose an enduring and empirically important puzzle. The paper provides a formalization of the popular view that payments in kind are due to financial constraints. The key assumption is that buyers’ liquidity is private information. Buyers who are financially constrained may prove their hardship by making part of the payment in kind. The paper models explicitly the credit market ...

Empirical studies often use Freedom House ratings for Political Rights and/or Civil Liberties as institutional proxies for the degree of democracy. In this study, Granger-causality tests are used which reveal that Political Rights tend to precede Civil Liberties, but not the reverse, in a panel data set of former Soviet Republics. For transition nations, Freedom House also publishes a separate ...

Throughout its short history, federal relations in Russia have been dominated by extra-legal political and economic relations rather than constitutionalism and the rule of law. The Russian Federation’s unique blend of constitutional, socioeconomic, and political asymmetry, far from promoting democracy, has bolstered authoritarian regimes in the regions. Federalism and regional democracy have al...