Vadim Kufenko provides a theoretical and empirical analysis of various aspects of economic growth and income inequality in the Russian regions using different estimation techniques from the cross-section OLS and logistic models to dynamic panel data system GMM. The general period for the data is 1995-2012. Acknowledging the crucial role of human capital, the author models the brain-drain using game theory and shows that the owners of human capital may have monetary as well as institutional motives. He states that the income gap between the regional elite and the population is a robust positive determinant of the risk of protests.

Vadim Kufenko is a research assistant at the Department of Economics at University of Hohenheim.