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Maryna Tverdostup, Tiiu Paas, ERSA 2016: The paper focuses on the identification of the unique, non-reached by the opposite gender human capital and the analysis of its effect on the earning profiles of unique human capital holders. The overwhelming research aim is to better understand the possible reasons behind gender wage disparities, focusing on the unique features of male and female human capital and their returns. When assessing the gender pay disparities, variation of human capital characteristics across males and females is assumed to be one of the decisive factors of differences in the wage outcomes across gender groups. However, males and females may not only differ in the set of individual characteristics, but also the distributions of these variables can hardly overlap, inducing the issue which is commonly referred to as 'support problem?. Empirical part of the paper relies on the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC - Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies) data (OECD 2013), including the estimates of cognitive abilities in literacy, numeracy and problem solving in technology-rich environment. We develop our empirical study using PIAAC national database for Estonia as a small, rapidly developing European economy characterized by high rate of female labor force participation and gender wage disparities. The issue of gender wage disparities is especially topical in the case of small and developing economies where labour markets are particularly sensitive to any gaps in returns to labour. Therefore, we believe that Estonian case is relevant in a wage gap research framework allowing making certain generalizations that will be of particular policy value for other relatively quickly developing economies and regions, where women's labour participation rate is high and/or has a tendency to increase. In this paper, the unique, non-reached by the opposite gender human capital is identified and its effect on the earning profiles of unique human capital holders is analysed implementing several matching procedures and non-parametric decomposition. The results of the study show that the unique combination of skills, as a main component of the human capital, reached by males and females and unattained by opposite gender is one of the key sources of gender disparity in a human capital. The results revealed that male-unique human capital is at large extent embodied in combination of outstanding numerical and problem solving abilities, being often a strong competitive advantage of males. All in all, the novel perspective towards gender disparities in human capital and introducing a concept of gender-unique human capital within the wage gap framework, proved that men's and women's profiles cannot be directly compared, as particular characteristics are exclusive for certain gender. Ignoring this notion leads to overestimation of discriminatory labor market effects and thus imprecise wage inequality estimation.

The curriculum of economic cybernetics was one of a kind in Estonia. This interestingly called curriculum was opened at the Tartu State University (TSU) in 1967, and 25 young students of economic cybernetics were admitted. Before that some earlier scholars had also completed a similar curriculum in TSU on the basis of a special programme. Students who had completed the curriculum received a diploma that listed economist-cyberneticist as their specialty (in case of some graduating classes also economist-mathematician). During 1972–1996, 25 regular classes of economic cyberneticists graduated from the university, and there are altogether 462 alumni of economic cybernetics. The structure of the TSU’s curriculum of economic cybernetics proceeded from pan-Soviet standards and obligatory subjects that had to be included in a curriculum. Yet, there was a small leeway in building a curriculum. Lecturers also had quite a lot of freedom in presenting the content of specific subjects, especially in the case of subjects that united knowledge about mathematics and economics, as well as offered opportunities to use mathematical methods and contemporary computing technology for analysing and planning economic processes. It took students five years to complete the economic cybernetics curriculum. Study practice and doing empirical research projects with an applied output played an important part throughout the studies. Students were expected to be very independent, creative and to make a large individual contribution in doing their research work. The teaching primarily relied on the learning-by-doing principle. As a conclusion it can be said that the curriculum of economic cybernetics allowed the Soviet-time graduates from the Faculty of Economics to get an economic education that was largely independent of the ideology of the socialist economic system and based on a good knowledge of mathematics. The economic education that the graduates received allowed them to cope well on the labour market and in quickly changing circumstances, even when people had to adapt to the requirements of market economy, and when large rearrangements needed to be made also in the field of economic science and the respective education. In connection to the extensive rearrangements in economic education and curricula that started in the 1990s, economic cybernetics smoothly transitioned into the specialty of economic modelling, and the process ended with the opening of Quantitative Economics—a new international English-language curriculum—in the Autumn of 2014., Tartu Ülikooli ajaloo küsimusi, No 43 (2015): Ühiskonda muutvad teadused rahvusülikoolis

The aim of this paper is to outline differences in the socio-demographic and employment characteristics of Estonian people who have worked in a neighbouring country ? Finland, Sweden, Latvia or Russia. The empirical part of this paper relies on data from CV Keskus ? an online employment portal bringing together jobseekers and vacant job posts. The results of our analysis show that different destination regions ? the wealthier countries of Finland and Sweden (referred to as East-West mobility) and Latvia and Russia (referred to as East-East mobility) have attracted workers with different personal and job-related characteristics. Ethnicity and higher education are important determinants in explaining differences between East-West and East-East labour flows. Non-Estonians and people with a higher education have been less likely to work in Finland or Sweden (East-West mobility).

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Professor Heiki Müür had his successful professional career mainly during the soviet period. Heiki Müür was born in 1932 in Tallinn. In 1954, at the age of 22, he received the diploma from the Tallinn Technical University, honouring him as a good specialist in socialist economy. This educational background allowed him to continue the post-graduate studies in the Moscow Institute of Economics. In 1959, he defended PhD thesis (candidate in economics), and in 1976, was approved as the habilitated doctor in Economics. Heiki Müür started his academic career at the Tartu State University in 1956, working initially as a lector and later as a docent and a professor. He published several books in Estonian that were actively used by the students as well as practitioners: Management and Planning, 1964; Prices and Economic Reform, 1971; Economic Planning, 1971; Economics and National Economy (editor of the series of books, 1972-1974; National Balance and Planning (1987, co-author). During his academic career, professor Heiki Müür demonstrated good abilities for leadership working as a vice dean and the dean at Tartu State University, and after 1990s, as a head of the institute of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration at the University of Tartu. During the years 1981-1986, he was the director of the Research Institute, which worked for the Soviet Estonian government in Tallinn; during these years, he also continued to work as a part-time professor at the university. We, as his students of the field of “economic cybernetics” (mathematical economics) and successors, appreciate particularly highly his activities and success in establishing and promoting education in mathematical economics at the Faculty of Economics of the Tartu State University. The new specialisation in the soviet economic education with the name “economic cybernetics” was opened at the Tartu State University in 1967. Professor Heiki Müür devoted lots of his energy, time and knowledge to create the school of young economists who have good knowledge in applying mathematical and statistical methods for analysing economic problems in Estonia. The knowledge in economics and research methodology of these graduates was not heavily related to the soviet rules of the economic mechanism. In collaboration with the young postgraduates, professor Müür started to develop applied research for the soviet firms examining the relationship between the working conditions and economic outcomes and implementing modern mathematical and statistical methods by conducting economic analysis. He was one of the initiators and organisers of the high scientific level economic conference on applying modern methods for analysing economic processes in Tallinn in 1981. L. Kantorovitš, the only soviet economist who got Nobel Prize (1975) in relation to elaborating and developing linear programming methods, was among the participants of the conference. Professor Heiki Müür was innovative and flexible in starting to restructure the curricula and study process at the University of Tartu after Estonia regains its independence. He was the initiator of offering new study courses in market economy not only for the students of the Faculty of Economics, but also for students from other faculties as well as for practitioners. The graduates, who obtained diploma in “economic cybernetics” and belonged to the school of the Estonian economists established by the significant contribution of professor Heiki Müür continued his work being the initiators and developers of the new economic curricula and of restructuring economic education and research in compliance with high level international requirements, Estonian Discussions on Economic Policy, Vol 18 (2010)

The paper focuses on quantitative assessment of the innovation’s role in explaining regional disparities and convergence in Europe. The empirical part of the study bases on the regional GDP pc and innovation indicators on the EU-27 NUTS2 level regions. Based on the selected set of initial regional innovation indicators and using the principal components factor analysis method, three composite indicators of regional innovation capacity are extracted. Estimating convergence equations, we noticed that regional innovations tend to increase inter-regional differences, at least during the short-run period. Thus, if regional income convergence is a policy target, additional policy measures beside innovation activities should be effectively implemented., Estonian Discussions on Economic Policy, Vol 20, No 1 (2012)

The interaction of inequality and growth and the direction of causality in this relationship have been an extensively discussed topic with several questions but without clear answers both in the theoretical and empirical literature. The current paper contributes mainly into the new economic geography (NEG) literature by focusing on the member states of the European Union. The purpose of the paper is to shed light on the effect of the economic development level and speed of growth on the relationship between economic growth and regional inequality. The research hypothesis of a significant interrelation between regional inequality and economic growth is discussed based on the models of NEG. The empirical part of the paper relies on the regional data of the 27 European Union member states at the classification level NUTS 3 over the period 1996 - 2006. The results of the empirical analysis allow us to conclude that regional inequality has a pro-cyclical character: regional inequality is as a rule higher in countries and time periods when economic growth is faster. However, this relationship varied between the countries of the EU-27 during the period under observation, depending on the development level. While in the Western European countries regional inequality and economic growth are negatively related, in the Eastern European countries regional inequality increases in the periods of fast economic growth. Relying on the NEG models, such differences can be explained by a different weight of internal and foreign markets in trade relations of countries and regions. Possibly the result also refers to disparities in congestion costs in Western and Eastern European core regions. We conclude that growth enhancing policy measures should be implemented at a different regional scale, depending on the level of economic development and growth of the countries. Growth supporting policies in poor countries should first of all concentrate on achieving sustainable national growth, not on reducing regional disparities.

The process of European integration has introduced a valuable empirical example on the impact of economic integration on income convergence. Many empirical papers confirm the income convergence within the new member states and between the new and old members. At the same time it is found that the main contribution to economic growth in these catching-up countries comes from the total factor productivity growth (TFP), which motivates us to take a deeper look on the factors behind TFP developments. The objective of this paper is to shed light on the characteristics behind the productivity development in the new EU member countries. It may be generalised that the productivity development of a country, industry or firm is determined by two main factors: its own effort to develop new technologies and some external technology pool. The ability to internalize the latter into the own productivity growth depends again on many factors like: various technology diffusion channels as foreign direct investment (FDI); import and export; absorptive capacity and geographic proximity. There is a vast empirical literature on drivers of productivity and productivity spillovers, but up to our knowledge there is no comparative analysis on CEE countries. The CEE countries are typical middle income countries that do not devote many resources on own R&D, but due to the common market have presumably benefited a lot from the technology pool of the neighbouring high-income EU members. Our paper contributes to the literature by investigating comparatively the eight EU members with former Soviet background and controlling for geographical proximity. We compose a 2-digit NACE industry-level data set over the time-span of 1995-2007 and employ a dynamic panel data analysis methods suggested by Arellano-Bover/Blundell-Bond. The preliminary results indicate that compared to studies on high-income countries CEE countries have benefited relatively more from foreign R&D stock and this effect is the strongest for small countries. Our analysis shows also that the geographical proximity to the high-income countries matters and within the EU geographic proximity is a better technology diffusion channel than trade flows.

The paper investigates income inequality and convergence among the EU-25 countries and their regions at NUTS 3 (Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics) level during the period 1995-2002. We measure the level of income inequality and its decomposition distinguishing the between and within country inequality as the components of the overall income inequality of EU-25, EU-15 and the new member states (NMS) of the EU recent enlargement in May 2004. In order to assess the inequality in living standards GDP in purchasing power standards (PPS) is used. In the empirical analysis of the convergence processes we consider the effects of interactions among neighbouring regions implementing spatial econometrics techniques. The estimation results are sensitive to the control for national effects. While the EU-25 and the EU-15 experienced a slow but significant process of absolute convergence there is no evidence found for regional convergence when national effects are considered. In the NMS the process of conditional convergence across regions even turns out to be significantly negative. This indicates that there were some divergence tendencies in the NMS during the period of 1995 – 2002.

W opracowaniu przedstawiono rozwój gospodarki Estonii w ostatnich latach w świetle danych International Institute of Management Development (IMD) World Competitiveness Yearbook (WCY) oraz wskaźnika wzrostu konkurencyjności szacowanego przez Światowe Forum Ekonomiczne. Estonia jawi się jako najbardziej konkurencyjny pośród europejskich krajów postsocjalistycznych. Gospodarka Estonii opiera się na wolności ekonomicznej i otwartości. Do szybkiego rozwoju tego bałtyckiego kraju przyczyniły się liberalizacja gospodarki, wsparcie finansowe Unii Europejskiej oraz duża ilość bezpośrednich inwestycji zagranicznych. Obecnie estońska polityka finansowa i dtug publiczny w pełni odpowiada kryteriom strefy euro. Wprowadzenie tej waluty jest jed nym z priorytetów rządu, i można się spodziewać, że w najbliższym okresie stanie się faktem. Druga część opracowania zawiera opis makroekonomicznego, wielosektorowego modelu gospodarki Estonii w jego obecnym kształcie. Powstaje on w ramach współpracy naukowej pomiędzy Uniwersytetem Tartu i Uniwersytetem Florenckim. Model ten korzysta z podejścia INFORUM. Pomimo, że dostępność danych dla Estonii jest wciąż niewielka (jak to zresztą jest w przypadku wielu nowych członów UE, wprowadzających dopiero standardy Eurostatu), udało się oszacować bloki równań opisujące udziały importu oraz wydajność pracy. Bloki te zostały włączone do modelu, opartego na tablicy input-output. Wyniki symulacji otrzymane przy zastosowaniu scenariusza zaproponowanego przez estońskie ministerstwo gospodarki wskazuje możliwości wykorzystania tego typu podejścia modelowego dla celów polityki ekonomicznej. Zadanie pt. „Digitalizacja i udostępnienie w Cyfrowym Repozytorium Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego kolekcji czasopism naukowych wydawanych przez Uniwersytet Łódzki” nr 885/P-DUN/2014 zostało dofinansowane ze środków MNiSW w ramach działalności upowszechniającej naukę.

The paper explores regional trade integration of the countries involved in the EU eastward enlargement (EU-25) processes distinguishing the possible regional trade clusters within EU-25 that may support integration of the EU-15 and the new member states. We examine whether the gravity equation based on the new trade theory describes trade integration of the EU-25 countries, and whether the results of a gravity model based analysis may be different in the case of the Baltic Sea region (BSR). The gravity models are estimated based on panel data for the years 1993 to 2002. The results of our analysis indicate that the BSR is forming an exception within EU-25. The BSR trade cannot be explained as much with New Trade Theories as in the case of the whole EU. The BSR countries have different factor endowments and the intensive trade relations between the BSR countries are mainly based on comparative advantages.