"Ukrainians greeted 2010 with a major increase in optimism. According to the survey run in December 2009, the Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) grew 7.9pp to 73.5. This is 19.6pp higher than the CCI stood in December 2008. These are the results of consumer confidence survey in Ukraine, a joint project between GfK Ukraine and the International Centre for Policy Studies. This noticeable improvement in the consumer mood at the end of 2009 could be a reflection of seasonal factors with the onset of holiday fever and anticipation of the presidential election, or it could be the result of a real improvement in the confidence of Ukrainian consumers in their jobs and in their futures. In affirmation of the latter assessment, expectations of changes in unemployment saw a major improvement, falling 17.8pp to 121.7."
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
Price Fixing
Subsidies anybody?
"Producers and consumers of mineral fertilizers, the Union of Ukrainian Chemists and the Agrarian Fund are planning to sign a declaration on freezing prices for such types of mineral fertilizers as ammonium nitrate, carbamide, phosphate and complex mineral fertilizers for three years.
The draft of a respective declaration was discussed at a council on the provision of farm producers with domestically-produced mineral fertilizers for the 2010 spring sowing campaign, which was chaired by Deputy Industrial Policy Minister Serhiy Hryshchenko, the Ukrainian Industrial Policy Ministry's press service reported."
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Bullish On Ukraine
Some people are still bullish on Ukraine
"Where do analysts say is the best place to invest overseas?
You guessed it... Ukraine.
On a bottom up basis, analysts predict the PFTS index will rise by 41% to 810.08, after closing out 2009 at 572.91, making it the best likely performer in 2010."
Trade Diversion - an Example of Sex Workers
The BBC reports interesting statistics on sex workers
"In 2006 the top countries of origin were Russia, Ukraine and Romania - in that order, the Tampep network reports. But in 2008 the top three were Romania, Russia and Bulgaria. Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007."
For more statistics see
Monday, January 25, 2010
Renewing Trust in the Banking System
An excellent paper on how past banking crises affects expectations about future banking crises - the recommendation for policy is straightforward: providing information is key - informed individuals discount past negative experience more.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Ukrainian Pension Reform
Yanukovych is against increasing the pension age for men and women
"On air of Mykolaiv regional broadcasting company the Party of Regions Leader Viktor Yanukovych said that he is against the increase of pension age for men to 65 years and for women to 60 years."
While his objections make sense for men (as the life expectancy for men is less than 65), the case for increasing the pension age for women seems to make more sense given that the life expectancy of Ukrainian women is so much higher.
Interesting info on the Ukrainian pension system can be found under the below links
Friday, January 22, 2010
Money and Politics
Marginal Revolution has a post on the fact that there is relatively little evidence that in the US campaign contributions have an effect on the votes of legislators (see below)
For Ukraine, the effect is much clearer as often campaign contributors get elected into the parliament giving them a direct vote in policy making
From www.marginalrevolution.com
"Why is there so little money in U.S. politics?"
That's the title of a famous paper by Stephen Ansolabehere, John de Figueireido, and James Snyder. The abstract of the non-gated version (other versions here) reads as follows:
Thirty years ago, Gordon Tullock posed a provocative puzzle: considering the value of public policies at stake and the reputed influence of campaign contributions in policy-making, why is there so little money in U.S. politics? In this paper, we argue that campaign contributions are not a form of policy-buying, but are rather a form of political participation and consumption. We summarize the data on campaign spending, and show through our descriptive statistics and our econometric analysis that individuals, not special interests, are the main source of campaign contributions. Moreover, we demonstrate that campaign giving is a normal good, dependent upon income, and campaign contributions as a percent of GDP have not risen appreciably in over 100 years - if anything, they have probably fallen. We then show that only one in four studies from the previous literature support the popular notion that contributions buy legislators' votes. Finally, we illustrate that when one controls for unobserved constituent and legislator effects, there is little relationship between money and legislator votes. Thus, the question is not why there is so little money politics, but rather why organized interests give at all. We conclude by offering potential answers to this question.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Kyiv Wakes Up Late
People in Kyiv, on average, seem to wake up later than in the rest of Ukraine
Indeed, according to the 2010 election results (http://www.cvk.gov.ua/vp2010/wp0011.html
click on Po Ukraini), only 16% of Kyiv voters voted before 11, against 25.7% on average.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Does It Make Sense to Buy Votes?
It's interesting to compare the 'cost per voter' estimates to the prices quoted by some of those who wanted to sell their votes
According to Erik Herron's site (http://vse-na-vybory.blogspot.com/) 'Prices range from 200 grivnya ($25) to over 1000 ($125)'
See also http://www.kyivpost.com/news/nation/detail/57084/ for more details on these auctions of votes.
Ukrinform (http://www.ukrinform.ua/eng/order/?id=178768) has today some info on the estimated cost per voter for the candidates
"Lytvyn has spent most per a voter than other candidates (USD 146.5 per a voter). Yatseniuk has spent USD 62.6 per a voter having set second in order of importance anti-record of the election race. A third place has gone to Serhiy Tihipko with USD 28.9."
A comparison of the asked prices to the cost per voter, suggests that for the leading candidates (Yulia Tymoshenko and Victor Yanukovych), it did not make sense to buy votes.
Of course, one could argue that one shouldn't compare marginal costs (the prices quoted) to average costs (the cost per voter).
Analyzing the Election
For interesting data analysis of the Ukrainian elections, check out the blog and the work of Erik Herron
Monday, January 18, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
The Slow Pace of Changes in Institutions
Today in Prague, James Robinson (Harvard) talked about the persistence of institutions, stressing the importances of changes in political powers as drivers of changes in institutions
Unfortunately (though not unexpectedly), it looks like Ukraine hasn't changed much in terms o political power, as the old protagonists have made it to the second round of the presidential elections.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Globalization
GDN's 11th conference is on Globalization this year
This morning's opening talk by Guillermo Calvo was interesting
but a bit too focused on blaming everything on the collapse of Lehman Brothers - my feeling is that the problems in Ukraine would have been exposed at some point, Lehman collapse or not - hence, while the timing of the end of the 'decoupling' idea might have been different, the fact itself to me looked unavoidable
Friday, January 15, 2010
Smoking Down!
Anti -smoking policies seem to help (or is it just the crisis' income effect?)
"KYIV, January 15 /UKRINFORM/. The number of smokers in Ukraine has been reducing, according to a survey conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS).
Thus, the maximum indicators of daily smoking prevalence among adult population of Ukraine (62.3% - among men, 16,7% - among women, 37.4% - in general) were registered in June 2005. In May 2009 the following indicators of daily smoking prevalence were registered: 49.4%% - among men, 8.8% - among women, 27.0% - in general. In October 2009 those indicators decreased respectively to 47.4% among men, 6.6% - among women, 24.8% - in general,
Following measures of tobacco control introduced in the country have contributed to the reduction of daily smoking prevalence among the Ukrainian population: gradual release of work and public places from tobacco smoke, increase in prices and excise duties on tobacco products, printing on tobacco packages extensive and varied warnings about the harmful effects to the health, providing aid to quit smoking in some hospitals, the KIIS reported.
As reported, the overwhelming majority of Ukrainian men are negative about smoking among women."
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Barriers to Agricultural Investments
"Agrarians of Ukraine not to invest in agricultural technical equipment
According to the current data of the polling of agricultural producers of Ukraine concerning their investment plans, realized by APK-Inform two times per year, the majority of agricultural producers of Ukraine does not plan to purchase agricultural technical equipment in the nearest half a year. According to market participants, the limited access to bank credits, and the absence of financial support from the government became the main reason of such decision.
At the same time, the difference between purchasing prices and prime cost of agricultural products also plays important role in prevention of investing plans.
Besides, in the terms of the political instability in the country (due to the elections), the majority of the interviewed agrarians prefer holding out own financial resources and refraining from investments."
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Ukraine Through Google's Eyes
Some people have discovered that Google predicts your search terms.
(see for example
That is, if I now type 'how can I' in Google (and then wait a bit), Google suggests to me 'how can I keep from singing'. Most likely Google makes such predictions based on its records of past searches (hence what you can get can be different from one moment to another).
Here is the top 3 suggestions that I get when I type 'Ukraine'
1 Ukraine Flu
2 Ukraine Flu Outbreak
3 Ukraine Plague
for Kyiv
1. Kyivstar SMS
2. Kyiv Post
3. Kyivstar
on 9. there's Kyiv School of Economics!
It's also interesting to see the suggestions when typing the names of Ukrainian politicians - Tymoshenko (hair), Yanukovich (egg, criminal record) and Yatsenyuk (Jewish).
Road Victims Down
"KYIV, January 12 /UKRINFORM/. The Interior Ministry stated that by results of 2009 the number of road accidents reduced in Ukraine.
In particular, the number of road accidents with victims reduced by 28%, with lethal outcome - by 31%, and with injured participants of road movement - by 28%."
This is an impressive decrease - it would be nice to find out why this happened - is it the increase of the fines? is it changes in reporting practices?
Saturday, January 9, 2010
As Skyscrapers Rise, Markets Fall - Ukrainian Evidence
"But a look at the history of record-breaking skyscrapers and business cycles suggests otherwise -- the opening of every single "world's tallest" building in the past century has coincided with an economic downturn."
This mid-November 2009 announcements coincides with this idea:
"Preparations for the construction of a 160-meter-high building have been launched downtown Kyiv, Gazeta-po-Kievski says.
A geological study is proceeding in the European Square, where the European Plaza Kiev 48-floor complex will be built. Luxury class offices, a five-star hotel with 200 suites and over 40 apartments (presumably on the top floors) will be situated in the 180,000-square-meter building. The complex must be commissioned in 2012. Currently Kyiv's highest building is office complex Parus, 33-floor and 2136-meter-high, at the crossroads of Lesi Ukrainky Boulevard and Mechnikova Street."
Friday, January 8, 2010
Quality of Life
Ukraine is 68 out of 194 in this Quality of Life ranking - so that's almost in the top third...
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
More Promises
"KYIV, January 6 / UKRINFORM/. This year, a legislative norm will come into force according to which privileges will be extended to employers employing young specialists. Therefore, graduators from higher educational institutions will be guaranteed the first working places,Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said at a meeting in Mykolayiv.
She informed that a mortgage program with the zero first payment will work for young families where at least one person works. The program will envisage a no more than 5 percent rate."
No unemployment - sounds very Soviet and very good. But if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is...
This kind of promises also make it very easy to understand why Ukrainians don't believe the promises of politicians.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Other Economics Blogs on Ukraine
Monday, January 4, 2010
Ukraine's Inverted Yield Curve
From Business Week
"The CHART OF THE DAY shows Ukraine’s bonds due in 2012 yield more than notes maturing four years later, suggesting investors are speculating that the nation will struggle to pay its debts in the next couple of years."
Recommended Reading
from Marginal Revolution
"In the 1961 edition of his famous textbook of economic principles, Paul Samuelson wrote that GNP in the Soviet Union was about half that in the United States but the Soviet Union was growing faster. As a result, one could comfortably forecast that Soviet GNP would exceed that of the United States by as early as 1984 or perhaps by as late as 1997 and in any event Soviet GNP would greatly catch-up to U.S. GNP. A poor forecast--but it gets worse because in subsequent editions Samuelson presented the same analysis again and again except the overtaking time was always pushed further into the future so by 1980 the dates were 2002 to 2012."
Friday, January 1, 2010
Blackouts and Babies
during the last week, several villages all over Ukraine had blackouts
This gives a nice natural experiment to see how blackouts affect for example fertility. There is some literature on this, see for example
and
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