What Women in Ukraine Want!

From the KIIS survey - the comment related to care and attention is most interesting!

"According to the February 2010 survey results:

Flowers, care, attention, kind words, jewelry, money and romantic trip are among the top five gifts that women would like to get

Ø 26% of women want to get flowers as a gift, while 32% of men plan to give them;

Ø Care and attention are on the second place in the female hierarchy of gifts - 13% of women expected this gift from men. However, only 6% of men plan such a gift for women. On the other hand, it should be emphasized that the interpretation of this response is rather ambiguous - would women really be happy if men offer them only care and kind words

Ø Absence of a person who could give the gift (to whom to give the gift) reported almost the same number of women (6%) and men (5%)

Ø In general wishes of women and intentions of men are quite close. Among most unmet women’s needs are: money (6.7% of women wanted to get the money, while 2% less men are going to give them), house or apartment (nearly 1% more women expect to get them comparing to the percentage of men who are going to give them) and household stuff (also about 1% difference). Flowers, perfumes and cosmetics are among gifts that men give more often than women would like.

Comparing the current survey results with the data from the previous years, we observe:

Ø Comparing to 2003, the number of men who plan to give flowers reduced (from 38% to 32%);

Ø Since 2003 the number of women who expect care and attention from men significantly increased (from 2% to 13%); alongside with that, the number of men who plan such a gift has increased slightly (from 1% in 2003 to 6% - in 2010)

Ø The number of women who would like to receive money as a gift has increased from 3% (in 2003) to 7% (in 2010).

Ø The number of men who can afford and plan to give to a women romantic trip has increased. In 2003 those were only 3%, while in 2010 - 7%.

http://www.kiis.com.ua/txt/doc/10032010/pr2.doc

ps - I expect this post to bring many visitors to my site!

Stress in Ukraine

"According to a recent KIIS survey 68% of respondents experienced some stressful situation during the year. In comparison to the year 2000 this number decreased by 9% (from 77% to 68%). Number of those who had no stressful situations during the year respectively increased from 22% in 2000 to 31% - in 2010.

Five types of stress were most common for Ukrainians in 2010:

Ø Severe disease experienced 16% of respondents (in 2000 - 22%);

Ø Severe disease and surgery experienced 14% (in 2000 - 19%);

Ø The death of loved ones experienced 13% of respondents (in 2000 - 16%);

Ø 12% of the Ukrainians lost their job – the same number as in 2000 (although in 2005 this situation occurred to twice smaller number of Ukrainians - only 6%);

Ø The loss of faith in people reported 11% of respondents (this number remains relatively stable during all 10 years)."

http://www.kiis.com.ua/txt/doc/10032010/pr3.doc

Professional Army

Even though in Ukraine, there is still a draft for the army, in practice there is a demand to enroll that exceeds the supply of army places

http://kyivweekly.com.ua/accent/vlast/2010/03/25/113154.html

This is interesting as it would mean that abolishing the draft and making a 'professional' army wouldn't change anything

Universities in Ukraine

An excellent piece on Ukrainian universities

http://www.kyivpost.com/news/opinion/op_ed/detail/63475/

Daughters and Voting Preferences

For those expecting a baby, this paper gives an interesting view on the effect of the gender of your newborn on your (voting) preferences

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/academic/oswald/daughtersrestat08.pdf

The Easter Effect

In behavioral finance, a lot has been written on the ‘holiday’ effect, the finding that stock prices tend to increase just before holidays, including before Easter. In retail sales statistics, the Easter effect means that either March or April will have higher than normal sales, depending on whether Easter was in March or April. On Friday April 2, I noticed an Easter effect on the Ukrainian markets for fresh vegetables (at least on the Zhitniy Rinok). Peppers had increased from UAH 35 a Kg to UAH 50 a Kg compared to a week before, cucumbers from UAH 22 to UAH 30. From an economic point, this is not that surprising giving the increased demand for fresh vegetables before Easter should indeed be expected to an increase in prices. At the same time, the extent of the increase, and especially, the fact that all sellers on the market were charging the same price suggest that this market functions far from perfect.

April 1 2010 column

my column in today's Ekon Izvestia

http://eizvestia.com/blogs/full/4194980