Small business and poverty: evidence from post-Soviet cities

Business cycles in Iran: Evidence from asymmetry and correlated shocks

In this Paper, business cycle asymmetry in Iran has been investigated using a nonlinear unobserved component model. In this regard, according to Kim and Nelsonchr('39')s (1999) interpretation of Friedman plucking model (1993), asymmetric transitory component has been modeled and simultaneously the possibility of a correlation between transitory and permanent shocks has also been considered. The...

Evidence from Business-Cycle Correlations Across Chinese Cities

We measured the business-cycle correlations of the real gross domestic product (GDP) growth rates of two cities to capture the degree of segmentation across China’s provincial and regional borders. This type of segmentation can be caused by local protectionism as well as other economic and geographic factors. After controlling the other factors, we zeroed in on the administrative border effect ...

Culture and gender roles: Evidence from a natural experiment in Post-Soviet Central Asia

Examining characteristics of traditional nomadic herding cultures and traditional sedentary farming cultures, both of which are deeply established in Central Asian history, I contribute to the literature on the foundations and persistence of gender roles in culture. Using a natural experiment resulting from a series of events in Kyrgyzstan during the Soviet rule of Central Asia that exogenously...

Conflict, Cooperation, and Relative Water Scarcity: Evidence from Post-Soviet Central Asia

How do countries that share cross-border rivers respond to periods of abnormally low water availability? This article argues that understanding whether countries react cooperatively or conflictually to within-basin shortages is just as important as identifying the influence of cross-basin differences in absolute availability. To study the effects of within-basin, relative scarcity, the article ...

Religious Culture: Faith in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia