Work in progress

Fiscal Sustainability under Natural Resource Depletion and Population Aging

(with Ruslan Aliyev and Ali Gunes)

Highlights:

• Resource-rich economies face two pressures at once: population aging and resource depletion.

• Resource revenues finance a substantial share of life cycle deficits.

• 3-year increase in the retirement age reduces oil financed transfers by 9.6%.

• 10% increase in labor productivity lowers fiscal imbalance by 23.7%.

• Economic diversification improves resilience to demographic aging.

Leverage and Financial Distress: A Meta-Analysis of Empirical Evidence

(with Miriam Brellikova)

Highlights:

• First meta-analysis of leverage and financial distress, 819 estimates from 217 studies

• Higher leverage predicts distress, pooled effect 0.258 with 95\% CI [0.232, 0.283]

• Leverage tracks bankruptcy (0.297) more closely than Altman Z (0.245) or other indices

• Market development is the strongest moderator, 0.307 developed against 0.234 developing 

• Correction methods place the effect between 0.18 and 0.27, mild selection at most

Equal Access, Equal Earnings?

Regional Returns to Russia’s Unified State Exam

(with Olesia Zeynalova)

Highlights:

• Estimates are consistent with earnings differences of 4-8% for USE-exposed cohorts.

• The share of exposed cohorts in professional or managerial employment rises from 21% to 26–28%, while degree attainment does not measurably change.

• We find no statistically distinguishable evidence that the estimated earnings difference is concentrated in Moscow and St.Petersburg.

• Differences by maternal education are suggestive rather than conclusive.

Recurrent Financial Distress:

Does History Matter Beyond the First Episode?

(with Olesia Zeynalova)

Highlights:

• One previous episode is linked to 2.3 times the hazard of a new distress episode.

•  Later episodes add much less, and their effect depends on the time scale.

•  A constant multiplier per episode is rejected in every specification.

•  With firm financials controlled, any past episode implies a 32\% higher hazard.

•  How distress is counted moves the estimated effect of history from 0.96 to 1.64.