Browsing by Subject "Russian Federation"

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    Rentabilität und Risiko typischer Ackerbaubetriebe in der Russischen Föderation
    (2009) Breunig, Peter; Zeddies, Jürgen
    Consistent world population growth, changing diets in emerging markets and the growing impact of biofuels led to considerable price increases for agricultural commodities since 2006, in particular for grains and oilseeds. Among other things this results in a growing interest of capital investors in investments in agricultural companies. Capital investments from outside the agricultural sector play ? especially in Russia ? a major role, due to the farm structure and the predominantly capital-oriented farm businesses. Until now, it is not yet clear, how these investments perform in comparison to the capital market regarding risk and return, which is critical for the future volume and sustainability of these investments. Therefore, the aim of this work is to analyze risk and return of typical arable farms in selected regions of the Russian Federation from 2000 to 2007 and make forecasts from 2008 to 2015. Additionally, the risk-return-performance of the analyzed farms is compared to a russian stock market index. This allows for the examination of the relative excellence based on risk and return among the typical farms and in comparison to the russian capital market. The evaluation of investments in arable farms in the Russian Federation based on risk and return analysis is done by two methods. The first method calculates performance ratios that are based on risk and return values of each typical farm. This is done by analyzing and forecasting financial models of the typical farms, which are based on farm surveys in the relevant regions. In total, eight typical farms in four regions (Voronesh, Stavropol, Samara and Omsk) of the Russian Federation are modeled. For the analysis of historic risk and return values, historic price and yield data from official statistics are integrated into the farm models and the relevant performance ratios are thus calculated. Future performance, price and yield data and their volatility is forecasted by using mathematical methods and published forecasts. The performance ratios of each typical farm are subsequently compared to the russian stock market index MICEX. The second method to evaluate investments in arable farms in the Russian Federation is based on the "Capital Asset Pricing Model". With this model, the return that agricultural companies in Russia have to achieve to have the same risk-return-performance as the Russian stock market can be calculated. This is done by analyzing the movement of applicable stocks relative to the total Russian stock market. Additionally investments in arable land are analyzed in the context of investments in arable farms. The results of the thesis show that in the historical period (2000 to 2007) only the typical farms in the Stavropol region are able to exceed the performance of the Russian stock market index. In the forecast period (2008 to 2015) one typical farm in the Voronesh region as well as the typical farms in the Stavropol region are expected to outperform the russian stock market. Furthermore, it can be shown that the arable farms in Samara and Omsk have a considerably lower risk-return-performance compared to the other typical farms in the west and southwest of Russia. The results validate the strong increase in investments in arable farms in the west and southwest of Russia in recent years. Moreover it is assumed that in the Samara and Omsk region similar investment volumes like in the western regions of Russia cannot be expected.
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    Sustainability assessment and education for sustainability in the Russian Federation on the example of Tambov region
    (2021) Bezgin, Anna; Doluschitz, Reiner
    Over the past few decades economic growth has come at the expenses of the environments and the topic of sustainable development is becoming more important. Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The main aim of this dissertation was to investigate the available methodologies of sustainability assessment and to test which of them could be suitable for Russian conditions. Russia is an interesting subject for research as, it has its own history of sustainability science, but quite often the commitment to sustainable development is only in rhetoric and there are some problems with the interpretation of the concept of sustainable development. For example, in Russian official documents the term sustainability is used as a synonym for stable economic growth. The focus of the research was a creation of an indicator system for a regional sustainability assessment on the example of Tambov region of the Russian Federation. At the first stage of the research a regional assessment was performed with the help of the United Nations set of sustainable development indicators, SWOT analysis was performed to identify the main strengths and problems in the region. Also, the availability of statistical data and relevancy for the research region of the indicators was checked. During the next stage of the research a composite indicator was created using different techniques for normalization of indicator and weighting. Then robustness and sensitivity analysis of created indicators was performed, the results were visualised, and composite indicators were decomposed to explain the drivers of the aggregated results. The result of this work has shown that composite indicators together with regional assessment on the base of sustainability indicators are the tools that could support policymakers in sustainability decision-making. There are some problems with the availability of the statistical data in Russia, and there is no monitoring mechanism at the federal district level and lack of coordination with work of statistical agencies. This research is confirming a necessity of further research, and a need to develop a monitoring and assessment system in Russian Federation. The second part of the research was devoted to education for sustainable development. UNESCO is stressing that the approach of Education for Sustainable Development empowers learners to take informed decisions and responsible actions for environmental integrity, economic viability, and a just society for present and future generations, and therefore education is playing a crucial role in reaching sustainability (UNESCO, 2017). The aim of this research was to see how the sustainability topics are integrated into the curriculum of the agricultural universities, to define the sources of integration and research possible problems and formulate the recommendations for strengthening the integration. To research the education for sustainable development in Russia first a literature review was conducted, followed by 16 semi-structured interviews with the representatives of 8 universities. The research confirmed the fact that sustainability is present as a topic in the official documents, for example educational standard, but this mention remains only rhetorical and does not provide the background for the establishment of a framework for integration of sustainability concept. As a result, the integration into education is mostly driven by the personal initiative of the teaching staff. There is a clear demand for an integration framework of sustainability topics in the federal state educational standard. The main problems are uncoordination and competition between departments and ministries, overload of teachers, lack of best-practices, absence of system in the education and limited financing. These problems could be mitigated with creation of interdepartmental centres, creation of interdisciplinary working groups, creation of a systematic concept of education for sustainability and involvement of different stakeholders into educational projects, but the success of these measures depends on the general approach and if the importance of sustainability will be present only in official documents, then there will be no shift in integration, and everything will depend only on individual initiative of teachers.