| Significant role in the international economic integration processes plays foreign trade,due to which cooperating countries can overcome the limitedness of natural resources and the narrowness of the domestic regional and national markets,the possibility of organizing mass production appears,the ratio of industrial equipment usage increases,grows the efficiency of new equipment implementation and technologies,increase economic growth rate and savings,and more efficiently countries resources are used.Practically there is no country in the world can effectively develop without interacting with other counterpart countries in the current environments.Countries tend to unite on the basis of their political,economic,geopolitical or geo-economic interests.To enforce these interests various integration groupings are creating.There are more than 50 multilateral economic integration associations at the present time.The intensification of the processes of regional economic integration is one of the most important development trends of the modern world economy.As the confirmation of this fact is the unprecedented growth in the number of regional trade agreements,observed since the early 1990 s.Up to date,the WTO has registered more than 500 of such agreements,of which more than 300 have already came into force.There are almost no countries in any form does not participate at least one integration association.Economic integration is increasingly seen by governments as an integral part of national economic policy.For a number of countries,because of certain reasons,regional integration is a necessary condition and the previous stage of subsequent integration into the world economic system.The successes and achievements of integration projects in developed countries serve as the impetus for the emergence of many integration groups in developing economies.The process of formation of the Customs Union of Russia,Belarus and Kazakhstan,proclaimed in 2010,is also seemed to face considerable difficulties in its expansion and the visible results of the Customs Union functioning which are already evident and can be evaluated after five years of the beginning of its existence.World experience indicates that customs unions create favorable conditions for development of trade,manufacturing,contribute to the strengthening of not only economic but also political relations between the integrating countries,which are consolidated by shared economic interests.The European Union has attained a high level of economic and political integration mostly on the ground of the customs Union.This process has not been smooth and devoid of contradictions,but the political willpower,the desire to seek compromise,common economic objectives eventually provided success.The purpose of formation of any integration Association is to provide for the participating countries economic advantages and benefits of mutual cooperation.The orienting of goal realization directions is to select the fields(sectors,areas)of the economic cooperation,in which it is possible to obtain economic benefits through the usage of the integration potential and competitive advantages together with distinctive features of the participating countries.Thus,the essence of the customs Union is to unite a maximal number of economies with a similar level of development,common cultural and historical values,and in such way as a broad coalition to integrate in the international trade,rationally controlling the flow of goods through the borders of customs Union countries.In this paper the main directions in the study of integration processes on the post-Soviet space are taking under consideration.The paper focuses on the particular empirical findings,on the current situation and development prospects of regional integration on the post-Soviet space.The paper also tries to trace the changing of interest in the integration of CIS countries in the field of regional integration.The paper also embodies the results of the analysis of economic development of the post-Soviet countries.Based on this analysis,a classification of the countries forming the Commonwealth of Independent States was done due to their level of social and economic development.The aim of this paper was to summarize the main directions of research on post-Soviet regional integration in both the Russian and international scholarly community.There is,in fact,a significant difference between these two research groups.Russian papers are rarely cited in international journals,and vice versa.There is,however,growing research that is departing from the unrealistic assumptions of the latter.It is concentrating on the empirical investigation of economic linkages between the post-Soviet countries,specifically in the area of foreign direct investments,migration,and sub-regional cooperation.There are also a growing number of normative papers,moving away from the 'Eurasian EU' idea of the 'average post-Soviet integration paper'.They are attempting to provide a more elaborate framework for international cooperation in Eurasia.Anyway,the studies on post-Soviet integration still attract substantial attention from Russian scholars,mostly economists and political scientists,also historians.The value of this paper is to propose and conduct a two-stage analysis based on cluster and regression statistical methods,in which conduct qualitative and quantitative assessment of the economic indicators of the countries of postSoviet space.Within this paper the subject of the research is a Customs Union formation.The aim of this paper in theoretical side of the research is to summarize the main directions of research on post-Soviet regional integration in both the Russian and international scholarly community.Another aim of this study is based on the econometric analysis of main economic indicators of participating countries,and with the application of statistical tools and descriptive statistics,to make a survey of the current situation of existing integration associations.One of the main goals of the present research is based on the collected data provide the research of the interrelation of main economic indicators of participating countries,along with the application of statistical tools such as cluster analysis and regression analysis with the help of descriptive statistics,to draw a conclusion about the nature of this integration association,its objectives,achievements and prospects.Using cluster analysis was carried out a visual association of the countries into the groups of most similar in socio-economic development.Another associated goal of the paper is the building and empirical assessment of the Partial Gravity Model of foreign trade for the member countries of integration associations on the post-Soviet space.This model can serve as a tool that allows to obtain the elasticity of foreign trade grounded on the size of the economies of trading partners,the value of trade barriers and the characteristics of the spatial structure of integrated countries' foreign trade flows,and therefore,allows to review and to append the currently existing paradigm of development and the necessity of the integration formations on the post-Soviet space.Such number of elasticity can be used in further studies related to the application of spatial Gravity model of trade in the post-Soviet space,and for analyzing the effects of various integration transformations from the perspective of pure economic feasibility angle.Further framework of the research embraces the following extension of the Partial Gravity Model to the extended mode,based on the author's estimates and assumptions.Together with Extended Gravity Model was made an appraisal mechanism for bilateral trade assessment of Customs Union countries.At the same time,it is necessary to study the current status and prospects of integration association based on the study of the historical development of the economy since independence obtaining and up to date,taking into account the divergence of the political and geographical interests of the countries,the prerequisites for integration for each of the Customs Union member countries.Creating of the Customs Union affects primarily the field of foreign trade,while the formation of the Common Economic Space includes ensuring the four freedoms within the territory of integration associations: the freedom of movement of goods,services,capital and labor.Accordingly,at the initial stage of this work attention is paid to the analysis of changes in the foreign trade of the participating countries for the period before the establishing of the CU and the results of functioning for the past few years after Customs Union integration formation.In this paper,the author considers the main directions in the study of integration processes on post-Soviet space.Main attention is focused on specific empirical findings but mainly on the current situation and perspectives for development of regional integration on the Post-Soviet space.The author also tries to trace changes of interest in Commonwealth of Independent States countries and in regional integration processes particularly,and the prospects for regional integration.The study in this paper deliberately omits political decision nuances,which have negative effects on the processes of integration,and political factors influence that often have not economic,but rather strategic and timeserving background.This study is based on the economic and social development statistics of post-Soviet countries,collected from open sources of statistical committees of the former Soviet Union republics and also statistical databases of international organizations.The paper will be divided into several logic steps in order to trace the prerequisites for integration processes and make attempts to evaluate its current state as well as make assumption for future tendencies.Based on this data,author compiling databases with application of statistical software in order to analyze aggregate econometrical data as well as social and economic indicators,and,finally,come up to a more complete understanding of present functioning and evolving perspectives of integration formation.The author shed light on the following questions through present research: What is the current situation on the Post-Soviet area;What role do integration processes play on the Post-Soviet area at the present time;What is the quantitative and qualitative structure of the present integration formation;Whether the current integration formation is the result of native historical evolution processes or largely has geopolitical aspects,other than purely economic reasons;What is the future of the integration formation in the nearterm outlook.At present,concepts,guidelines and methodologies for the current integration phenomena are in a considerable amount,however the obtained results usually have a sufficient divergence.It can be explained as an incomplete form and content of these integration processes,the specific features of both political and socio-economic development of the region,as the instability of the objectives and prerequisites in the formation of both present and future objectives of the operation and prospects of development.The post-Soviet space is a set of countries,non-equal both economically and politically.General situation overview is also complicated with the presence of a significant amount of integration associations and various integration groupings.Within the scope of this work through the application of cluster analysis is carried out the division of all post-Soviet republics(except the Baltic States)into the subgroup of economically comparable countries,which allows us to estimate the degree of heterogeneity and the possible integration of the countries of the region.The criteria for classification were averaged over the period 2005-2014 years.The Gravity model is wide spread in applied econometric studies,and today is one of the most commonly used tools for not only international trade analysis,but also in traveling,migration flows and foreign direct investments flows.One of the reasons for the success of Gravity models is the strong correspondence between obtained model results and observed data.Especially,Gravity models have proven themselves in the analysis of integration associations,primary in the analysis of trading blocs.Particularly,Gravity models allow analyzing both cross-country trade flows within integration blocks and trade flows between the various integration factions.Moreover,the Gravity models help to highlight so-called trade creation effects and trade diversion effects and make a quantitative assessment of it.The analysis of trade flows in the Gravity model can be carried out both on the aggregate level,and by taking into account the product's differentiation level.The latter way is preferred if there is a significant differentiation in the granting of trade preferences to different groups of commodities,and also in the case of significant dominating of any heading trade position in the mutual trade,which requires separate analysis.To explore the parameters of mutual trade and its impact on the value of export and import flows of the countries which form the Customs Union,Gravity Model regression analysis was conducted.Based on the collected statistics for member countries of the Customs Union in the period of 2005-2014 at the first phase was proposed and substantiated Partial Gravity Model for each of the Customs Union countries.The coefficients for the export and import flow equations for all combinations of the Customs Union and the other postSoviet republics in the period of 10 years(2005-2014),obtained with the OLS method using the statistical package SPSS.On the next step of the statistical analysis built before partial Gravity model has been expanded including to a number of independent variables.The next stage of the research is to work out the Extended Gravity Model,which,along with the already used as independent variables,is complemented with independent and dummy variables.The period of statistical studies observations was extended to 2000 – 2014.The dummy variable for the membership in the Customs Union is applied since the time of the actual commencement of the integration association.Determining the integration as a process,it should be noted that it is not an objective itself.This is just one of the tools that can be used to achieve the national goals and objectives of the formation of integration association.Accordingly,integration can have different dimensions-it is possible to measure both the process and evaluate the completeness of the implementation of the integration measures,as well as the outcome of this process through a set of indicators,describing the effect of the integration of the economies of participating in an integration association.It should also be added,that the gravitational model itself is not predictive and usually based on its results and conclusions describe the historical dynamics.The Gravity model of trade does not allow us to consider increasing of member countries welfare of the regional block,but the Gravity model only indicates the increasing volume of bilateral trade.For estimating integration block welfare a number of descriptive statistics together with ordinary linear regression analysis is taken.At the final stage of the export and import flows research for the Customs Union countries,there is built an ordinary regression model of export and import flows for the pairs of participating countries for a period of independence in 20 years(from 1995 to 2014),based mainly on the basis of econometric indicators.The structure of thesis consists of several consecutive logical blocks.Initially,the literature review block provides an overview of the current situation on the former Soviet Union area,and gives a retrospective analysis of the evolution of post-Soviet countries.In addition,there are reviews of the scientific literature and current research papers by the local representatives of the scientific school,as well as with world scientific community approaches to this phenomenon.It is also considered the genesis of the theory and practice of applied research and applied statistical tools to assess the nature of the existence and effectiveness of integration formations.On the basis of the considered statistical methods and models the framework of the statistical part of the study is structured.Besides,described the process of formulating goals and objectives of the research,seeking ways to achieve it,validating the empirical data of the statistical analysis selection and taking a qualitative analysis of primary and secondary data.In the following block theoretical methods are reviewed and described used statistical models and related methods of statistical analysis.In the block of empirical studies the author based on collected data applies the models of statistical analysis and evaluate the results.Based on these results and descriptive statistical analyzes temporary conclusions are formulated and carried out comparative analysis of the obtained characteristics.In the final section conclusions and review of the study all the final results of the model tests are validated and author forms the final conclusions.This chapter also contains questions regarding to the limitations of carried statistical analysis of empirical data and theoretical conclusions based on the methodology of the research.In conclusion,the paper is revised for indicating directions for future research in this field,taking into consideration the prospects of the subject and object of the research,together with the presence of significant factors and assumptions,which can greatly change the course of study or radically change the results.The creation of the Customs Union and further Eurasian Economic Community primarily infringe on the sphere of countries international trade,whereas the formation of the common economic space means the provision of the four freedoms on the common territory of integration associations: the freedom of movement for goods,services,capital and workforce.According to this fact,at the initial stage of this paper research,the research attention is paid to the analysis of changes in the external trade of the Customs Union members during the period before and after the establishment of the Customs Union and the results of functioning for the past few years after integration.The nature and structure of the mutual trade flows of the participating Customs Union countries – Russia,Belarus and Kazakhstan is taken under review.Besides,pointed out the current state and the prospects of development of leading branches of members' economy.The paper illustrates the characteristic of the main directions of countries integration on the post-Soviet space and also Identifies factors contributing to the unification of the countries within the customs Union,including a long joint development history,similarity of political and economic models.The current level of development and problems of trade partnership of the Customs Union countries reflected as well.Based on these data,the paper provides conclusions about the economic feasibility of the form and content of the existing integration associations and prospects of integration structures on the post-Soviet space. |
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