IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jcecon/v52y2024i1p271-296.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Institutions, abilities, and the allocation of talent: Evidence from Russian regions

Author

Listed:
  • Alexeev, Michael
  • Natkhov, Timur
  • Polishchuk, Leonid

Abstract

Strong institutions attract talent to productive activities, whereas weak ones raise the appeal of rent seeking. We propose a theory that describes the impact of institutions on occupational choices over a range of abilities, and predicts that the sensitivity of such choices to the quality of institutions rises in talent when the latter increases from low to intermediate levels, and declines thereafter. To test these predictions empirically, we use a unique micro data set describing the choices of fields of studies by newly enrolled university students in Russian regions in 2011–2014. We show that the popularity of sciences and engineering, on one hand, and law and public administration, on the other, are linked to the quality of regional investment climate and another measure of institutional quality in a manner predicted by our theory.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexeev, Michael & Natkhov, Timur & Polishchuk, Leonid, 2024. "Institutions, abilities, and the allocation of talent: Evidence from Russian regions," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 271-296.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jcecon:v:52:y:2024:i:1:p:271-296
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jce.2023.11.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0147596723000987
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jce.2023.11.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Institutions; Allocation of talent; Rent seeking; Human capital;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D02 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Institutions: Design, Formation, Operations, and Impact
    • I25 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Economic Development
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • O43 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Institutions and Growth

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jcecon:v:52:y:2024:i:1:p:271-296. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622864 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.