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Introduction – In recent years, there has been a growing interest in innovation, not only in developed countries but also in developing countries. However, there has been limited literature for the developing countries.

Purpose – The literature on national innovation systems (NIS) mainly consists of case studies or qualitative researches aiming to explain the patterns of innovation, while the quantitative analysis are limited in explaining the innovation capability and efficiency of innovation. This study is unique in a sense that it compares the innovation efficiencies of the EECA countries. This chapter aims to measure the efficiency of NIS via data envelopment analysis (DEA) method.

Methodology – DEA is used to consider a sample of 18 Eastern European and Central Asian (EECA) countries and Turkey. One of the main issues is to determine the input and output variables because the available data for some of these countries were limited. Therefore, research and development expenditure (% of GDP), government expenditure on education, total (% of GDP), imports of goods and services (% of GDP) and foreign direct investment, net inflows (% of GDP) were determined as input variables. Output variables were as follows; patent applications both residents and non-residents, high-technology exports (% of manufactured exports) and scientific and technical journal articles.

Findings – Based on the key findings it can be noted that Kazakhstan, Turkey, Latvia and Uzbekistan are more efficient in innovation performance compared to other EECA countries. Throughout the results of the DEA, these countries may develop new policies about their innovation systems to reach out the higher performance.

The paper seeks to examine the impact of social exclusion on individuals' propensity to be employed and how, if employed, social exclusion affects individuals' perceived job insecurity and the likelihood of being covered by social insurance in their jobs.

Using the United Nations Development Program/United Nations Children Fund 2009 survey data from Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the paper employs comprehensive econometric methods that overcome challenges posed by endogeneity of social exclusion in labour market outcomes, self‐selection into employment, and the interdependency between perceptions of job security and social insurance coverage.

Results suggest that socially excluded individuals face hurdles in securing jobs and exhibit higher risk of job loss. Further, results suggest that a holistic educational policy could help promote social inclusion.

Formulation of policies aimed at promoting social inclusion and improved labour market outcomes should not be done in isolation; rather they should be based on a holistic understanding of the multi‐faceted nature of social exclusion.

The originality of the analysis is that it takes into account the multi‐dimensional nature of social exclusion by treating social exclusion as an outcome of a diverse set of an individual's socio‐economic characteristics that ultimately shape the way they feel about their exclusion or inclusion in their societies. This gives an indication of the types of people that are socially excluded and form the group for which a further investigation of labour market outcomes is conducted.

The United Nations General Assembly Special Session on drugs has provided countries with internationally agreed recommendations to adapt their drug policies for more efficiency and better outcomes. This chapter focusses on the Russian Federation’s role in international drug policy, through an analysis of its national approaches and their design, as well as on its diplomatic efforts at the bilateral and multilateral levels to oppose drug policy reform. A systematic review of peer-reviewed, grey literature, policy documents, UN reports and news reports on the country’s response to drugs internally and externally was conducted between September and December 2017. Despite its efforts to oppose drug policy reform and the prioritisation of public health, the Russian Federation faces major epidemics of imprisonment and HIV. Internationally, while it has not been successful in addressing the ongoing reforms in Europe and the Americas, it has been effective in preserving its international priorities by opposing harm reduction and maintaining the prohibition paradigm at the multilateral level.

This paper aims to estimate the global income distribution during the nineties using limited information. In a first stage, we obtain national income distributions considering a model with two parameters. In particular, we propose to use the so-called Lamé distributions, which are curved versions of the Sigh-Maddala and Dagum distributions. The main feature of this family is that they represent parsimonious models which can fit income data adequately with just two parameters and whose Lorenz curves are characterized by only one parameter. In a second stage, global and regional distributions are derived from a finite mixture of these families using population shares. We test the validity of the model, comparing it with other two-parameter families. Our estimates of different inequality measures suggest that global inequality presents a decreasing pattern mainly driven by the fall of the differences across countries during the course of the study period that offsets the increase in disparities within countries.

The negotiations leading to the UN Special Session (UN General Assembly Special Session on drugs (UNGASS)) on drugs have highlighted the lack of consensus among the global players, with some strengthening the prohibitionist approach and others seeking policy reforms. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the Russian Federation’s national policies and diplomatic activism to influence the outcome of the negotiations at the multilateral level.

A systematic review of the federal legislation on drug control and the legislation on HIV/AIDS has been undertaking in October 2016. Peer-reviewed, grey literature, policy documents, UN reports and news reports were used to gather information on the country’s response to drugs internally and externally.

Despite its limited regional influence on harm reduction and declining financial power, the Russian Federation has been successful in preserving its international priorities by opposing harm reduction and maintaining the prohibition paradigm in the UNGASS outcome.

Every effort was made to identify valid sources of information on the levers of influence of the Russian Federation. Little data were available on the real outcome of the efforts deployed in influencing the BRICS and other regional and international assemblies.

This paper presents an overview of the national policies of the Russian Federation, a global player, and provides a better understanding of how the national approach to illicit drugs and their perception influences its international position. It analyses the geographic, economic and diplomatic sphere of influence of the country in drug policies, and provides explanations on the successes and shortcomings of the Russian influence at the multilateral discussions on drugs.

The purpose of this study is to examine how corruption affects the prevalence of product and process innovation by firms.

This study uses firm-level data from the 2012–2016 Business Environment Enterprise Performance Surveys and utilizes a conditional mixed process model to address endogeneity concerns, taking bribery as a measure of corruption.

The study shows that measures of bribery are positively and robustly associated with innovation but mainly for firms reporting many competitors. The results are stronger for firms reporting more obstacles. Both findings support the inference that bribes facilitate innovation by allowing firms to evade regulatory obstacles.

The current research on corruption's effect on innovation restricts the association to be uniform across the sample, but this study shows that the impact depends on the degree of competition faced by a firm. In addition, the data used in this study cover 30 economies in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and thus contributes to determining the effects of anticorruption practices in emerging countries.