Dr. Nikita Zakharov

• Journal Articles
• Book chapters
• Other publications

Journal Articles

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2022

• Dmitrii Kofanov, Vladimir Kozlov, Alexander Libman, Nikita Zakharov
  Encouraged to Cheat? Federal Incentives and Career Concerns at the Sub-national Level as Determinants of Under-Reporting of COVID-19 Mortality in Russia
  2022 British Journal of Political Science, pages: 1 - 26
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  Abstract

  This article investigates the determinants and consequences of manipulating COVID-19 statistics in an authoritarian federation using the Russian case. It abandons the interpretation of the authoritarian regime as a unitary actor and acknowledges the need to account for a complex interaction of various bureaucratic and political players to understand the spread and the logic of manipulation. Our estimation strategy takes advantage of a natural experiment where the onset of the pandemic adjourned the national referendum enabling new presidential terms for Putin. To implement the rescheduled referendum, Putin needed sub-national elites to manufacture favourable COVID-19 statistics to convince the public that the pandemic was under control. While virtually all regions engaged in data manipulation, there was a substantial variation in the degree of misreporting. A third of this variation can be explained by an asynchronous schedule of regional governors’ elections, winning which depends almost exclusively on support from the federal authorities.
  
  
   
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• Zakharov, Nikita, Alexeev, Michael
  Who profits from windfalls in oil tax revenue? Inequality, protests, and the role of corruption
  2022 Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, volume: 197, pages: 472 - 492
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  Abstract

  We investigate the relationship between oil windfalls and income inequality using the subnational data of one of the resource-richest and highly unequal countries in the world – Russia. While previous literature produced contradictory findings due to the use of an aggregate measure of oil rents mainly in cross-national settings, we focus exclusively on oil rents that accrue to the subnational governments across one country. Our estimation strategy takes advantage of the two specific features of Russian oil taxation: 1) the policy change when sharing oil extraction taxes with local budgets was discontinued; and 2) the oil tax formula being tied directly to the international oil prices making oil price shocks an exogenous measure of change in oil rents. When we look at the period with oil tax revenues shared with the regional governments, we find that oil windfalls had increased income inequality and benefited the wealthiest quintile of the population in regions with more intense rent-seeking. Further, positive oil price shocks combined with greater rent-seeking reduced the share of labor income but increased the income share from unidentified sources traditionally associated with corruption. These effects of oil windfalls disappeared after the Russian government discontinued oil tax revenue sharing with regional governments. Finally, we examine some political implications of rising inequality due to the appropriation of oil windfalls. We find a positive effect of rising inequality on the frequency of protests associated with grievances among the poor and disadvantaged social groups; this effect, however, exists only in relatively democratic regions.
  
  
   
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2021

• Alexeev, Michael, Zakharov, Nikita
  Who Profits from Windfalls in Oil Tax Revenue? Inequality, Protests, and the Role of Corruption
  2021 CAEPR Working Paper Series, volume: 2021, issue: 004, pages: 1 - 45
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  Abstract

  We investigate the relationship between oil windfalls and income inequality using the subnational data of one of the resource-richest and most unequal countries in the world – Russia. While previous literature has produced contradictory findings due to the use of an aggregate measure of oil rents in mainly cross-national settings, we focus exclusively on the oil rents that accrue to the subnational governments across one country. Our estimation strategy takes advantage of the two unique features of Russian oil taxation: 1) the change in oil-tax policy when sharing oil-extraction taxes with local budgets was discontinued; 2) the oil-tax formula tied directly to the international oil prices allowing to use the oil price shocks as an exogenous change in oil rents. When we look at the period with oil-tax revenues shared with the regional governments, we find that oil windfalls had increased income inequality and benefited the wealthiest quintile of the population in regions with more intense rent-seeking. Further, the positive oil price shocks combined with increased rent-seeking reduced the share of labor income but increased the income share from unidentified sources traditionally attributed to corruption. These effects of oil windfalls disappear after the Russian government discontinued oil-tax revenue sharing with regional governments. Finally, we examine the potential political implications of the rising inequality due to the appropriation of the oil windfalls. We find its positive effect on the frequency of protests associated with grievances among the poor and disadvantaged social groups; this effect, however, exists only in relatively democratic regions.

2020

• Zakharov, Nikita
  Asymmetric Oil Price Shocks, Tax Revenues, and the Resource Curse
  2020 Economic Letters, volume: 186
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  Abstract

  The paper proposes an asymmetric relationship between oil rents and institutions such that only positive oil windfalls adversely affect institutional quality, and negative oil windfalls have no impact. We test this theory empirically by studying the dynamics of institutional quality in Russian regions. We find that increases in tax revenues caused by exogenous positive oil price shocks do not change regional income but increase corruption and reduce regional democracy and governance quality; declines in tax revenues from negative oil price shocks do not affect institutional quality but decrease regional income.
• Kofanov, Dmitrii, Kozlov, Vladimir, Libman, Alexander, Zakharov, Nikita
  Encouraged to Cheat? Federal Incentives, Career Concerns, and Local Freedom of Press as Determinants of Under-Reporting of COVID-19 Mortality at the Sub-National Level
  2020 SSRN eLibrary, volume: 2020, pages: 1 - 35
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  Abstract

  This paper investigates the determinants and consequences of manipulating coronavirus statistics in an authoritarian federation; in particular, we look at how the career concerns of local politicians and the regional free press determine the under-reporting of COVID-19 mortality at the sub-national level in Russia. Our estimation strategy takes advantage of a natural experiment where the onset of the pandemic has adjourned the national referendum enabling new presidential terms for Vladimir Putin. To implement the rescheduled referendum, the Russian government needed the help of sub-national elites in manufacturing favorable COVID-19 statistics to convince the public that the pandemic is under control. While virtually all regions engaged in data manipulation, as we show by comparing the official data on COVID-19 mortality published in real-time and the excess mortality reported by the authorities only after the referendum, there was a substantial variation in the degree of misreporting. We show that a third of the variation can be explained solely by an exogenously set asynchronous schedule of governors’ elections, winning which depends almost exclusively on the support from the federal authorities. We find a robust causal relationship between the proximity to the governor’s election and the under-reporting of mortality associated with COVID-19 before the referendum, but not after when the political incentives from the federal center vanished. The local free press becomes a strong predictor of less under-reporting of COVID-19 mortality after the referendum. Looking at the consequences of the data manipulations, we find that under-reporting undermines individual trust in official statistics and decreases unresponsiveness of self-isolating behavior to changes in official COVID-19 mortality.

2019

• Zakharov, Nikita
  Does corruption hinder investment? Evidence from Russian regions
  2019 Eur J Polit Econ, volume: 56, pages: 39 - 61

2018

• Schulze, Günther G., Zakharov, Nikita
  Corruption in Russia - Historic Legacy and Systemic Nature
  2018 CESifo Working Paper, issue: 6864
  
   
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2016

• Schulze, Günther G., Sjahrir, Bambang S., Zakharov, Nikita
  Corruption in Russia
  2016 J Law Econ, volume: 59, issue: 1, pages: 135 - 171

Book chapters

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2018

• Schulze, Günther G., Zakharov, Nikita
  Corruption in Russia
  In: Handbook on the Geographies of Corruption
  2018, Edward Elgar, Barney Warf, pages: 195 - 212, Barney Warf, ISBN: 9781786434746

Other publications

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2024

• Rey, Ramón, Schulze, Günther G., Zakharov, Nikita
  Transit Migration and Crime: Evidence from Colombia
  IEP Discussion Paper Series, University of Freiburg, issue: 44, 2024

2023

• Rochlitz, Michael, Schoors, Koen J. L., Zakharov, Nikita
  Can Authoritarian Propaganda Compete with the Opposition on Social Media? Experimental Evidence from Russia.
  SSRN Working Paper, volume: 4433145, 2023
• Schulze, Günther G., Zakharov, Nikita
  Political Cycles of Media Repression
  BOFIT Discussion Papers, volume: 3, 2023
• Kozlov, Vladimir, Kofanov, Dmitrii, Zakharov, Nikita
  The Effect of COVID-19 Cash Transfers on Health and Well-being of Adolescents: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Russia
  SSRN Working Papers, volume: 4411663, 2023

2022

• Enikolopov, Ruben, Rochlitz, Michael, Schoors, Koen J. L., Zakharov, Nikita
  The Effect of Independent Online Media in an Autocracy
  SSRN, 2022

2017

• Zakharov, Nikita
  Does Corruption Hinder Investment? Evidence from Russian Regions
  IEP Discussion Paper Series, University of Freiburg, issue: 33, 2017

2013

• Schulze, Günther G., Sjahrir, Bambang S., Zakharov, Nikita
  Corruption in Russia
  IEP Discussion Paper Series, University of Freiburg, issue: 22, 2013