2009. Vol. 10. No. 2

The paper presents a comparative analysis of the employment stability in Russia and Eastern Germany applying a single methodology and comparable micro data sets. In the early 1990s Russia and Eastern Germany went through fundamental changes resulted from the transition from planned to market economy. Despite the fact that each of these countries followed its own way of transformation, the principles of employment have been similar in many ways. Research focuses on a key characteristic of stability/instability of employment. Representative nation-wide data bases (RLMS for Russia and GSEOP for Eastern Germany) provide an opportunity for measurement and econometric analysis. The presented paper reveals and compares main factors of employment instability in Russia, Eastern and Western parts of Germany.

This paper describes major principles governing the organization of bazaar. The bazaar economy shows a number of distinctive characteristics that distinguish it from the perfect market as well as non-market economy. The search for information and its protection are central treats of life in the bazaar. Search effi ciency depends on two most important procedures, namely: clientelization and bargaining. The bazaar does not correspond to a stereotypical vision describing it as a chaotic crowd phenomenon. Instead, it presents a complex structure of ties among participants involved in close relations of competition and interdependency

The study aims to analyze institutionalization of networks of social support in inter-family and friendly exchanges. Social support networks imply a set of various systems of continuously reproduced personified relations and interdependencies of network character based on the traditional institution such as family and friendly mutual aid. This institution is regulated by a complex set of formal rules (laws) as well as informal norms (customs, traditions, and in special cases so-called criminal slang). The paper shows effective methods for research in social support networks in inter-family exchanges. A process of institutionalization is illustrated by the model of unbalanced exchanges among the network members in urban and rural families. The author indicates three basic forms of exchanges of psychological resources in networks of social support. At the core of institutionalization of support networks there are relations that participants of these networks meaningfully construct and some unintended outcomes they have in the end.

This research is devoted to ethical consumption understood as the buying or not buying of goods, for ethical, political or environmental reasons. This type of consumption is studied from the moral economy perspective. The data used here for analysis is the European Social Survey (ESS) of 2002/ 2003. In a cross section of 19 European countries the author explores determinants of self-reported ethical, political and ecological consumption. On the individual level he finds that especially education and values concerned with environmental care are important explanations for ethical buying or boycotting behaviour. Country level differences in ethical consumption can to a large degree be explained by the affluence of countries.потребление

This review of Alexander Kurakin’s from the series “Russians outside of Russia: Social and Economic Thoughts” is about a founder of Peasant Party S. Maslov’s book written at the time of collectivization (1937). Maslov argued that collectivization was a new and unique phenomenon entailed by the Socialist system. What is specifi c about it? Why did Russia face the overall collectivization? What benefi ts did kolkhozes bring to the authorities and peasants? The presented review provides us with answers for these and some other important questions. The Maslov’s book is based on rich empirical evidences including eyewitnesses’ narratives, the Soviet mass media, Communist party leaders’ speeches, etc.