International Center for the Study of Institutions (ICSID)

How and when do employers cooperate with the state in order to further local economic development? Traditional work on business-state relations has highlighted the commitment problems that bedevil attempts by firms and the state to co-invest in cooperative programs to improve the local business climate and foster local development. These problems are particularly severe in settings where weak institutions make it difficult for firms to hold local officials accountable for breaking agreements or acting opportunistically. Traditional work on institutions and investment would suggest that under such circumstances, cooperation between firms and the state should be non-existent absent political connections to guarantee property rights, exit options, or duress. Contra to theory, however, emerging evidence on vocational education reform in Russia and China suggests that firms and the state can work together on joint projects, despite weak accountability environments.

 

This post-doctoral position entails working with ICSID scholars Israel Marques and Thomas Remington to produce a comparative study of public-private partnerships in Russia and China. The goal of the project is to both categorize various regional models of public-private partnerships in the two countries and to better understand the conditions that lead to their emergence. The post-doc will assist ICSID scholars in developing data on public private partnerships in Russia and China, expanding ICSID’s current database of public-private contracts between Russia’s firms and state-run vocational education facilities to cover a longer period in Russia and to include Chinese data. Although the primary purpose of the post-doctoral project is comparative, the successful post-doctoral candidate should have an active research agenda relating to business state relations and is highly encouraged to pursue individual projects. In addition to ICSID’s data on public-private partnerships, post-docs will also have access to ICSID’s databases of regional elites, socio-economic variables, and survey instruments.

·        working under the direct supervision of Thomas Remington (Leading Research Fellow, ICSID)

·        supervision of data collection for the Chinese side of the project

·        participants are encouraged to pursue their own research in parallel with working on ICSID’s research projects in two broad areas:

o  Business-state relations and their influence on the development of vocational education and retraining in Russia’s regions

o  Business strategies and policy preferences with respect to regional and federal level skill formation

·        writing research papers for international peer-reviewed journals in co-authorship with the members of the Institute

·        participation in organization of events and other contributions to the Institute’s development

·        teaching and public presentations of candidate’s own research are also encouraged

 

-         a PhD from an international research university in such fields of social science as: economics, sociology, political science, public policy or government;

-         a strong interest in the fields of business-state relations; regional focus on China

-         a strong background in data processing and data analysis using classical statistics;

-         ability to work in a team;

     -         strong English communication skills