Monthly Archive: April 2016

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Opinion

Beware of Rankings! Or Should Ukraine’s Labour Reforms be Justified by Scores in International Composite Indicators

Rankings and comparisons based on international composite indicators have become extremely popular. However, if poorly constructed or misinterpreted, they can send misleading policy messages. This post examines methodological pitfalls in three renowned composite indicators of labour market regulations, and in rankings based on them. It argues that justifying reforms with the aim of improving Ukraine’s position in aggregate rankings should be done with great caution, and best simply avoided.

іMoRe №33. WTO Government Procurement Market and Reform of Special Permits for the Use of Mineral Resources 1

Editorial Picks

іMoRe №33. WTO Government Procurement Market and Reform of Special Permits for the Use of Mineral Resources

Index for Monitoring Reforms (iMoRe) from VoxUkraine aims to provide a comprehensive assessment of reform efforts by Ukraine’s authorities. The Index is based on expert assessments of changes in the regulatory environment in five areas. In the first half of April Index for Monitoring Reforms reached to +0.8 points (possible range from -5.0 to +5.0). According to experts there were quite a few positive developments, especially in the areas of competition policy and foreign trade, still they were incremental and their overall impact was rather low.

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Editorial Picks / Financial System / Monetary Policy

Why Ukraine Needs the IMF More Than the IMF Needs Ukraine

VoxUkraine thinks that it is crucial for our country to continue cooperation with the IMF. Ukraine needs the IMF money and financing from other donors anchored to it. Ukraine needs foreign expertise and advice. Ukraine needs to break the tradition of failed IMF programs and to show that this time is different – that it can be viewed as a trustworthy partner. Most importantly, Ukraine needs reforms stipulated in the program.

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EU/US/Russia relationships

EU Policies for Ending Violent Conflicts. Ukraine and Syria Experience

Human security can only be achieved by means of legitimate political authority both the state’s and supranational structure’s like the European Union. EU policies for ending violent conflicts are mostly directed at stabilization on classic peace-making lines. They involve the provision of humanitarian assistance, mediation among the warring parties, and ‘post-conflict’ reconstruction. Also EU policies do include many novel approaches such as state-building, law and order and policing.

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Editorial Picks

Party Switching: to Ban or not to Ban

Ukraine is not the only country where party switching is banned. By introducing anti-defection laws, some countries attempt to solve the problem of frequent and dubiously motivated cases of floor crossing that disrupt the political stability and seemingly distort the election results. Yet a high price to pay is a decrease in political competition and the conservation of an underdeveloped party system. Ukraine should lift the ban on party switching, developing instead political mechanisms of MPs’ accountability and considering less stringent institutional limitations.

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Opinion

5 Reasons to Believe that Ukraine Needs a Parliamentary System of Government

It follows from the comparative politics literature that the choice of political institutions may have lasting effects on the development of Ukraine. Though it seems that no system of government is unambiguously better, a shift to parliamentarianism could make Ukrainian political system more accountable and more efficient as well as less conflictual, less corrupt and less prone to the erosion of democracy.

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Financial System

Economic Return to Farmland in Ukraine and its Incidence

Farmland rental prices in Ukraine are more than 10 times lower than they could be in case land and other factor markets distorts are mitigated. Such distortions include poor access to capital, farmland sales moratorium, fragmentation of land ownership etc. A straightforward conclusion is that opening up the sales market for agricultural land would benefit not only those who would decide to sell their land, but other landowners as well.

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Law

A Case for Constitutional Reform in Ukraine

Ukraine has a mixed parliamentary-presidential system in which both the prime minister and the president have control over various parts of the executive branch of government. The president is directly elected by the people, while the prime minister is appointed by the parliament. The president has authority over the heads of the local governments and over some parts of the national government, while the prime minister controls most of the national government. This mixture of presidential authority over local governments with national ministers who are accountable to the parliament is particularly unique to Ukraine. This article is analyzing which constitutional reform can work best in Ukraine.

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Fiscal Policy

Economic Recovery is a National Security Issue: The Case of KyivStar

Trust and rules are critically important for conducting economic activity. If Ukraine wants to succeed economically, and thus politically, the authorities should focus on increasing the security of property rights and minimizing the ability of the state agencies to void contracts that were concluded and executed in good faith.

 

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