Pet Overpopulation

Given the problem with stray dogs in Kyiv, the Kyiv authorities might want to read this paper on Pet Overpopulation and how to avoid it.

Color in Ukraine

"Family Portrait in Black and White" has brought the story of a woman raising 16 black orphans in Ukraine, an overwhelmingly white and often racist society, to the Sundance film festival."

Citations of Members of the Academy of Sciences

A very revealing table showing the almost complete lack of 'international' citations of the Ukrainian economists who are members of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences - scroll down to the end of the file and smile...

The same is true for the corresponding members

If you want to know the Ukrainian economists whose work matters at the international level, you can read my paper or look at this ranking

When to Invest in Ukraine

Ukraine's president promotes Ukraine in Davos in the following way:

"In order to 'Switch On Ukraine' it is enough to look at it with your own eyes when chestnuts start blooming in Kiev and Ukrainian women start undressing. To see this beauty is amazing," the Ukrainskaya Pravda newspaper quoted Yanukovych as saying."

Consequences of Price Regulation

Price Regulation can keep prices down but can also bring quantities down, as illustrated by two reactions of producers this week:

From BGCapital Daily Market Watch

"Kernel halts domestic sunflower oil sales

Kernel (KER PW) has temporarily halted domestic sales of bottled sunflower oil, APK-Inform reported, citing local players. The move comes in response to the Anti-Monopoly Committee’s recently announced investigations into reports of price collusion by the three largest oil producers in Ukraine (see news from January 24). Dmytro Ushenko: As we expected (see our Initiating Coverage report from December 16, 2010) Kernel looks to have chosen to redirect some volumes of sunflower oil from Ukraine to export markets in response to growing pressure from the regulator. We estimate that Kernel’s domestic bottled oil sales will fall 7% y/y and will account for 12% of the company’s total sunflower oil sales in 2011."


And

"Number of large producers stops selling buckwheat

According to the company representatives, the main reason for the emergency of this situation is the measures applied by state bodies for stabilization of the price situation on the market."


Start the queues for sunflower oil and buckwheat!

Ukraine the Dangerous Outlier

The Economist has an interesting graph on traffic deaths and traffic cameras - it illustrates well how dangerous Ukrainian roads are

An Example To Follow

"Russia is ready to unilaterally recognize higher education diplomas and advanced academic degrees issued by leading universities around the world, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said."

Surrogate Parents

surprising that the below is possible in Ukraine:

"Because no laws exist to govern the practice in Ireland, many couples face a legal quagmire after their babies are born. For those who have chosen cheaper options (such as travelling to the Ukraine, where surrogacy costs between $20,000 to $30,000), the complications can be especially daunting. "There's no legislation on the ground here. Everybody is losing out on this," Marion Campbell says, adding, "When it comes to family life and children we're very behind the times. They [the government] don't want to touch it."

The legal uncertainty has serious implications for parents and for children. When a surrogate baby is born in the Ukraine, the names on the birth certificate are those of the intended parents rather than the surrogate mother. This means the baby will not receive a Ukrainian passport, but Ireland may not grant a passport either. The result is what Campbell describes as "a stateless baby" in Ukraine -- it might or might not be possible to return to Ireland with emergency travel documents, but the child will still be without proper identification and nationality, and for the parents, the prospect of costly court cases looms."

How Ukraine Makes the International Headlines

Ukraine does sometimes gets the attention of the international press. But not always for the right reasons. An example of the last two days.

Ukraine on CNN: topless protest

Ukraine in the Belgian press I: Crocodile eats telephone

Ukraine in the Belgian press II: Ukrainian Lady shakes baby on YouTube. This last news item also shows the confusion between Russia and Ukraine - the "Ukrainian" lady is quoted as saying that wildly shaking babies is normal in Russia. But when looking at the Youtube video they are talking about a Russian lady...

Illegal Financial Flows

Ukraine ranks 17th!

The report and data (!) can be found here

An International Ranking of Fairness

There is a whole literature on fairness in economics, but as far as I know, there is no international ranking that ranks countries in terms of fairness. The UEFA Respect Fair Play ranking however presents one way to rank countries on this criterion.

I aggregated the results of the last 10 years (2000-2010, but 2001 is missing - the original data can be found here) - the overall ranking, based on the weighted average score, for those 50 'countries' that are available every year can be found here


Sweden, Norway, Denmark, England and Finland make the top 5. So the Nordic countries are the most "fair" countries, at least based on behavior of football teams.

The correlation between the 2000 and the 2010 score is about 0.7, which is reasonably high as one would expect as fairness should not vary too much from one year to another.

According to the UEFA "The Respect fair play assessments are made by the official UEFA delegates, based on criteria such as positive play, respect of the opponent, respect of the referee, behaviour of the crowd and the team officials, as well as cautions and dismissals."

It would be nice to make an analysis based on the components of this index - unfortunately, those disaggregated data are not available online and the media center of the UEFA informed me that disaggregated data are confidential since they are part of the official match reports which are not made public - not really transparent, indeed. Maybe an idea for Wikileaks?

Ukraine and Fair Play

Ukraine ranks 30th in terms of fair play (out of 48) according to UEFA's latest ranking.

The Endogeneity of a Firm's Wage Policy

The IER has an interesting paper on how Ukrainian firms have changed their wage policy over the crisis, which you can find here

Political Asylum

Ukraine is now a country from which you can flee for political reasons:

"Czech prison service spokesman Robert Kacer said a state prosecutor ordered Bohdan Danylyshyn's release, a day after he was granted political asylum."

Ukraine versus Belarus

"On our return to Minsk, we find the bars and cafés full of well-dressed young people. Aggression and public displays of drunkenness are refreshingly absent from the streets. Outside the state opera (cheapest tickets US$2), we meet an Irish restaurant owner who has emigrated to Belarus. "This is the place," he says. "The economy is booming and there's a real vibe. My son and I went to Ukraine recently and everyone was saying to us: 'Can we have the Belarus president in charge here for a year?'"

It's not difficult to see why. Unlike Ukraine and Russia, Belarus's economy is not dominated by billionaire oligarchs. There is no underclass: according to UN figures, Belarus has one of the lowest levels of social inequality in the world. Lukashenko wins elections not through fear, but because he has delivered social protection and rising standards of living. Growth now stands at 7 per cent."

A somewhat too optimistic view of Lukashenko if you ask me, especially given latest developments. Note that the Ukrainians in the article wanted Lukashenko 'for a year'. That is exactly where the problem is with Lukashenko.

Wholesale Markets

The Ukrainian government thinks it can promote the sales of Ukrainian agricultural products by organizing wholesale markets. One wonders whether organizing such markets couldn't be a profitable activity. As far as I can understand, in Belgium such auction sites were established in the 1940s and 50s by the farmers themselves as cooperatives. On the website of one such Belgian wholesale market it is explained that the goal of these sites is to allow farmers to have more control on prices.

The official reasoning in Ukraine, as set out in this article reads as follows:

"According to the official, the program for construction of a network of wholesale markets that the government started last year will be a rather tangible stabilizing factor that will allow structuring the vegetables market and regulating it in the future.

Rozgon forecasts that with the help of those markets it will be possible to considerably cut the volume of imported agricultural products to Ukraine. He explained that for today, Ukrainian supermarkets are engaged in the sale of imported products, since as distinct from Ukrainian products, they are supplied in clearly defined volumes, in clearly defined terms and with clearly defined quality.

According to the official, in Ukraine activities on such terms is impossible, however formation of the network of wholesale markets will help ensuring accumulation, storage and promotion of products in compliance with the European, as well as world norms and requirements."

According to this article, the government plans to invest one billion in these markets.

Ukraine Needs 'Harvard Boys'

"We need professionals, the so-called Harvard boys, those young Ukrainians who received a good education.
These well-educated Ukrainians with practical experience have a different vision of the world and Ukraine and Ukraine’s place in the world should come to power. I think, after some time the president will make a presentation of his new team.”"

The thinking is not bad, though one wonder whether 'Harvard Girls' would be acceptable too...

Beer Habits

"According to the survey, for the majority of Ukrainians the average one-time norm of beer consumption is 0.5 and 0.33 liter (50.2% and 16.3% respectively) that corresponds to the norms calculated according to the international standards. The majority of Ukrainians knows what is the safe norm for beer consumption, however one third of respondents pointed out 1-2 liters of beer as the average norm."


An interesting article about the evolution of the beer sector in Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, can be found here

New Year Inflation

New Year has an inflationary effect:

"In the final days before the New Year, there was a traditional hike in prices for exotic fruits - pineapples, tangerines, and oranges - a 10% increase compared to the current price."