Are Agricultural Prices Determined Locally?

According to this news, the Ukrainian government seems to think so...

"Azarov has informed that the program will provide for stabilization of prices for agricultural products, food security and setting up of the market infrastructure, vegetable storage facilities, refrigerators, wholesale markets and the renewal of cattle breeding.

"Construction and the agroindustrial complex, according to our plans, will be the driving force of the economic growth since 2011, since they are oriented at the domestic market and are immune to the foreign conjuncture," the Premier noted."

"Immune to foreign conjuncture" looks like a very optimistic statement to me, except of course, if you start using export and import quota...

Women Economic Opportunities Index

Ukraine is 53th (out of 113) in terms of Economic Opportunities of Women, according to this report. Interesting information on legal rights of women in an international perspective can be found here

Adoptions

This is an interesting site where pictures of orphans are shown, orphans that are up for adoption. According to this news item, "576 children have been adopted in Ukraine thanks to internet portal sirotstvy.net. This is an ideal starting point for an analysis of the chances to be adopted - does age and gender matter? do looks matter etc.

Interesting Business Ideas

The Day has some collection of interesting business ideas - my preferred one is the queuing service

http://www.day.kiev.ua/310230

Donating to Cambridge

Donating money to higher education is commendable - but Mr Firtash could probably have 'earned' more value-added if he would have invested in higher education in Ukraine, where money is scarce, than in Cambridge. With 6.7 million dollar you could create, and run for many years, an excellent Ukrainian studies department at a Ukrainian university, with an impact on the Ukrainian society which would be many times bigger.
http://www.kyivpost.com/news/nation/detail/83718/

Interesting Stats on the VAT Bonds

"According to traders of the Troika Dialog company, primary holders are now ready to part with their securities if they are offered discounts at the levels of 16.7-18.0% of the nominal value (corresponding to the effective yield of 13.9-14.7% per annum)."

http://www.ukrinform.ua/eng/order/?id=199159

Country Economic Memorandum

The World Bank presented the latest Country Economic Memorandum for Ukraine today!

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/UKRAINEEXTN/Resources/UA_CEM_ENG_complete.pdf

Take a look at the acknowledgments on p 6 and smile!

Tom

Tolls or Traffic Jams

An article that is very relevant for Kyiv too - it argues that if one introduces tolls on the roads, one would be able to avoid traffic jams. The question is whether people would be willing to pay to avoid traffic jams...

http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/5525

Marriage Market

An interesting illustration of the marriage market, and its economic principles

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/independent-woman/love-sex/from-ukraine-with-love-2342907.html

My New Website

I just created a new website which has links to all my papers and colums! Enjoy!

https://sites.google.com/site/tomcoupe1/home

CSR in Ukraine

Some research on CSR in Ukraine, though only available in Ukrainian, can be found here

"in terms of education everything seams to be great"

From the Day's latest issue:

"At the same time, Ukraine’s education index is 0.96. “We did better than many countries that belong to the first group, such as Switzerland, Great Britain, Liechtenstein, and Japan. In other words, in terms of education everything seams to be great,” says Libanova. She also emphasized that in terms of the education index, Ukraine is first among the countries with a medium level of human potential development (a group to which it belongs)."

http://www.day.kiev.ua/308711

The typo in this paragraph sEems to suggest that not all is that great - quantity is one thing (that is what the index measures), quality is another...

Ukraine's Competitiveness Going Further Down

According to the World Economic Forum, that is - see the table here

One could argue here about whether this change is statistically significant - still, last year Ukraine also dropped 10 places

http://tomcoupe.blogspot.com/2009/09/ukraines-competitiveness-going-down.html

Ukrainian Millennium Goals

The UNDP has presented its Millennium Goals for Ukraine and sees economic reforms as an important part of reaching these goals.

http://www.undp.org.ua/en/media/45-prosperity-poverty-reduction-and-mdgs/1014-effective-economic-reforms-to-improve-ukraines-mdgs-performance-a-new-report-says

Metro Fare

Finally increased from 1.7 to 2 UAH, still ridiculously low when compared internationally. And, at least according to the metro's calculations not enough to break even.



"According to his [Finance Director of Kyiv Metropoliten Yuriy Koshmak] calculations, the annual level of expenditures will equal Hr 1.1. billion, while the enterprise's income from passenger transportation amounts to UAH 600-700 million."

http://www.kyivpost.com/news/city/detail/81338/

At least now the price is a round number which should decrease transaction costs substantially.

Rules and their implementation

“Strangely enough, many law enforcement officers not only did not understand that they were to impose fines for smoking in the wrong places, they hadn’t even heard of it before,”

http://www.day.kiev.ua/307877/

Ukrainians and Drugs

some interesting info on the habits of Ukrainians when it comes to buying medicines can be found here

Not A Good Example

If you want to have an example of how not to treat an investor and how not to behave when organizing a tender, read here

AMCU and Politics

An Anti Monopoly Committee should be an impartial regulator - In Ukraine, however, the head of this committee is planning to run for mayor on a platform backed by the current government parties.

http://www.kyivpost.com/news/politics/detail/80699/

In the Army

The Ukrainian army recruitment advertisement in a comparative perspective!

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/08/31/be_all_that_you_can_be_in_somebodys_army