Research
Research
National Sustainable Finance Roadmap of Armenia, as a part of Financial System Development Centre and Green Finance Working Group of the Central Bank of Armenia, in cooperation with Deloitte (Luxembourg) and GGF, 2023.
Pollution, the depletion of natural resources, and climate change are imposing substantial economic barriers, which have not been considered or adequately tackled in global development strategies before. There is a growing awareness that the risks of inaction are considerable, and that a new development model can unlock great opportunities across the globe. Armenia’s sustainability vision is outlined in several core documents, and it lays out ambitious goals related to economic growth, energy diversification, ecological balance and social stability. These sustainability aspirations have the potential to deliver strong social, environmental and economic outcomes, which will also contribute to the delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) highlighted in the UN 2030 Agenda. Thus, sustainable finance has a key role to play in supporting Armenia’s economic growth while helping to reduce pressures on the environment and strengthening social and governance factors. While the momentum from commercial banks has been highly encouraging, there is a growing realization that the entire financial system will need to join the effort to help the country pivot towards a new sustainable growth trajectory. To realize this ambition, Armenia has developed a sustainable finance roadmap through an inclusive, multi-stakeholder process. The roadmap frames and clarifies current developments, and draws on relevant international experience from the growing number of countries, which are scaling up sustainable finance across continents. Built upon four key pillars, which are building awareness and knowledge, mobilizing funding, enhancing markets and embedding sustainability, the roadmap describes in detail the initiatives to be taken in upcoming years to promote the development of sustainable finance in Armenia.
Russian Migration to the United States in the Twentieth Century, joint with Timur Natkhov (HSE) and Natalia Vasilenok (HSE), 2020
Background: The first Russians to set in the territory of the USA constituted a part of internal migration: during the eighteenth century, traders and missionaries crossing Siberia reached Alaska which then became a colony of the Russian empire. By 1784, the first Russian settlement was found in Kodiak, a large island off Alaskan coast. In 1867 the Russian government sell Alaska to the US, and most Russians who had settled there, returned home. A large-scale emigration from Russia to the USA started only in the 19th century. The immigrants of the 1800s entered the US due to massive poverty and starvation. Between the thirty-year time period from 1880 to 1910 more than 2 million Russians sailed to the United States. Russians who arrived in the States since 1880, till the First World War, entered the industrial labour force in the north-eastern United States. About half of the settlers ended up in New York City, Boston and Chicago, working mainly as garment workers. This number of emigrants was even higher, almost 3.2 million, in the mentioned period. Nearly half of them were Jews, and only 65,000 were ethnically Russian. The remaining immigrants were Belarusians and Ukrainians. Yet, some authors reveal: in the late nineteenth century the overseas migration of Russians was quite limited, and the main stream of mass migration abroad occurred between 1907 and 1914. Russians contributed their diverse cultural traditions and faith to the places where they settled. Unlike immigrants from other countries to America in this period, few Russians returned. Despite the low rates of return, psychological factors affected the consciousness and the spiritual world of Russians, with the main one, being the reduction in the number of emigrants. After the First World War, emigration patterns from Russia changed with the main being the reduction in the number of emigrants. The First World War, Russian Revolution and the Bolshevik Revolution altogether resulted in refugees losing their homes. Nearly 1 million fled the country. Lots of Russians who migrated to Siberia and Manchuria (in China), ended up finding their ways to American West Coast, specifically the Angel Island Immigration Station, where on average, a Russian stayed from a few days to four months. American Laws became very restrictive after the World War I ended, the US became very isolationist, making their immigration laws very restrictive. Thereafter, only 20,000 were able to find their ways to America in the period following the Bolshevik Revolution (1917) till World War 2.
Return Migration Decisions: Evidence from the Irish Mass Migration at the turn of the twentieth century ( job market paper, 2020).
Abstract: Approximately 800,000 Irish migrants left for Ellis Island at the Age of Mass Migration (1892-1924). Who were the return Irish? This paper investigates self-selection of Irish return migrants and the determinants of their return decisions from the United States. It is the first study to analyse return migration for the country with the highest emigration rate to the States within Mass Migration (1850-1913) using micro data. The estimations show that about ten percent of male migrants and seven percent of single women returned home on average within eight years from their departure. Based on the classification of within sectoral occupations, I observe that upon return, male migrants working in agriculture and professional occupations were involved in higher-skilled occupations, compared to the non-migrant population. Return migrants specializing in production were involved in lower-skilled occupations. I do not observe selection of return migrants from the migrant pool before leaving Ireland. I further link the return decisions in the counties with higher return migration rate to migrants’ decisions of investing in land following the Irish land reforms.
Key words: return migration, mass migration, occupations, selection, land reforms.
JEL classification codes: F22, N33, N93.
Presentation available to view here
The Long-Run Impact of Historical Shocks on the Decision to Migrate: Evidence from the Irish Migration, joint with Gaia Narciso (Trinity College Dublin) and Battista Severgnini (Copenhagen Business School), 2020
Abstract: What is the long run impact of large negative historical events on the individuals decision to migrate? We investigate this research question by looking at the effect of the Great Irish Famine (1845-1850) on the long-run individual decision to migrate to the US. We construct a unique dataset based on two early 20thcentury Irish Censuses and the Ellis Island Administrative Records. This allows us to test whether the Great Irish Famine, one of the most lethal starvation in history, had a long-run impact on individuals’ migration decisions. Controlling for individual and geographical characteristics, we find that the Irish Famine was a significant long-run driver of individuals’ migration choices. Instrumental variable analysis based on the exogenous spread of the Famine provides support to the above findings.
Key words: mass migration, negative shock, long-run impact, Great Famine.
JEL classification codes: F22, N33, N93.
Abstract: Ellis Island immigration station opened on 1st of January in 1892. Over the next five decades, more than 12 million immigrants passed through the Island on their way to the States. More than 800,000 Irish immigrated to Ellis Island since then, until 1924. Who were the Irish migrants? This paper describes the construction of a dataset on Irish migrants at the period of mass migration. The core of the paper is historical record linkage between the two rounds of the twentieth century Irish Census records and Ellis Island Administrative Records. I describe various matching strategies for identifying migrants from the Census population and determining their individual characteristics in 1901 and 1911. I find that migrants were more often male, young, literate, Gaelic-speaking, unmarried adults. Male migrants were more often holding agricultural occupations and female migrants were more often engaged in the service sector. Migration rate was higher in Western and South-Western counties.
Keywords: Age of Mass Migration, Ellis Island, matching, characteristics of migration.
JEL classification codes: F22, N13, N93.