Suchergebnisse

The digital economy and sharing platforms generate new types of mechanisms, ensuring credible commitments. Transparency and bilateral rating systems for both consumers and producers constrain opportunistic behavior, thus creating trust. The main hypothesis is that sharing companies and platforms act as a substitute for institutional trust. Country- level data analysis shows that there is a negative correlation between the sharing economy index and institutional trust and a positive correlation between the sharing economy index and institutional quality. The findings support the idea that as sharing companies can compensate for the lack of institutional trust and stimulate economic transactions, they are especially useful in the countries with a low level of trust.

The paper deals with the concept of culture and cultural capital in the economic theory. The concept of culture is analyzed through the points of criticism of social capital by R.Solow. The paper suggests a refined definition of culture and cultural capital. Several ways of productive use of cultural capital are described. Among them: through reduction of uncertainty and transaction costs, through use of competitive advantages, based on culture and harmonization of formal and informal rules. The effect of cultural capital on bilateral trade through reduction in uncertainty and transaction costs is tested in the empirical part of the paper. A suggested approach to cultural capital, based on transaction costs theory can be useful for institutional design, and policy-advice, aiming at the increase in competitiveness of society and the efficiency of formal institutions.

There is abundant evidence of the correlation between culture (or sociocultural characteristics, by which we mean here values and behavioral attitudes shared by a certain community and changing slowly over time) and economic and innovation development. At present most studies have been carried out at national level. At the same time, sociocultural differences within the countries with a large territory and significant socio-economic and ethnic diversity (Russia, in particular) are understudied. The subject of the research is the differences in socio-cultural characteristics between Russia's regions. The purpose of the paper is to determine the presence or absence of differences in socio-cultural characteristics according to G.Hofstede between the regions of Russia. The empirical basis for the study is data from representative polls, collected by the Russian Venture Company and the Institute for National Projects in 14 regions in 2018–2020. Econometric analysis (ecological approach) and univariate disperse analysis shows the existence of sociocultural heterogeneity between Russian regions measured with Hofstede characteristics: individualism and power distance (more pronounced differences) and uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation (less pronounced differences). Statistical differences between regions in masculine dimension are non-existent. Regions tend to form sociocultural clusters that are not explained by geographic, socio-economic or ethnic factors separately. The results are useful for the analysis of sociocultural drivers and barriers for regional development, as well as for institutional design, raising efficiency of formal institutions by harmonizing them with regional culture.