The New
York Times worries that that the market for buying and selling
air-pollution permits in Europe generates too
many greenhouse gases.
“ …The penny ante price of carbon credits
means the market is not doing its job: Pushing polluters to reduce carbon
emissions…,” write Timesmen Stanley
Reed and Mark Scott.
Actually, that’s the European Union’s
job.The market’s job is to provide the
amount of cleanup mandated by the EU as cheaply as possible, in terms of
resources used up.If we can abate
another ton of carbon emissions with the toil of one worker rather than two,
then let’s do it.The second worker can
do something else useful, like research.
The permit market is unusual.Most markets determine the quantity as well
as the price of the product offered.If
the demand for roses rises in February, then the resulting price increase will
induce florists to sell more roses.But
the market for pollution permits sets only
the price.The number of permits is
determined by EU authorities.If they
print too many permits (that is, demand too little cleanup), then that’s their
fault, not the market’s.
Why not use a conventional market for
permits?Because it won’t work.The producer of cleanup technology cannot
collect a payment from everyone who benefits from it, so he will supply too
little technology.One solution (maybe)
is to have the government require polluters to clean up by issuing them just a few
pollution permits.Polluters will demand
more cleanup equipment when it’s cheaper than permits.The producer of the equipment can easily
identify the major polluters, so he can collect enough money from them to make
production of the equipment worthwhile.
The
sweet smell of excess
The Times
writes:“When the emissions trading
system was started in 2005, the goal was to create a global model for raising
the costs of emitting greenhouse gases and for prodding industrial polluters to
switch from burning fossil fuels to using clean-energy alternatives like wind
and solar.
“When carbon prices hit their highs of more
than 30 euros in 2008 and companies spent billions to invest in renewables,
policy makers hailed the market as a success. But then prices began to fall.
And at current levels, they are far too low to change companies’ behaviors,
analysts say.”
The Timesmen
– excuse me: “analysts” -- have the story backwards.The new cleanup technologies have reduced
polluters’ demand for permits.It’s
often cheaper now to switch to a clean fuel, like natural gas, than to buy a
permit to burn carbon-loaded coal.Since
polluters no longer want permits, their price has fallen.That’s a sign of success.
This matter is vital for Central
Asia.As transition
economies continue to grow rapidly, they will emit more and more
pollution.We would like to reduce emissions
without destroying too many jobs.A
permit market induces cleanup by those polluters who can do so most
cheaply.If Central
Asia refuses to set up permit markets because it misunderstands
the European experience, then it will probably revert to the old
“command-and-control” policy in which each polluter cuts back emissions by the
same percentage, regardless of the expense.That would waste resources – a luxury that poor countries cannot afford.
–Leon
Taylor tayloralmaty@gmail.com
Good
reading
Wallace E. Oates, editor.The RFF
reader in environmental and resource management.Resources for the Future.1999.
References
Stanley Reed and Mark Scott.In Europe, paid permits for pollution are fizzling.The New
York Times.April 21, 2013.Repetitious and disorganized.
A few days ago, the European Parliament refused
to pull many pollution permits off the market.This sparked accusations that the permit market somehow worsens
pollution – a mindset
akin to that of the Incan emperor who throttled the bearer of bad tidings.
I’ll
explain why.But first, some background: Most power plants burn coal or oil to
generate electricity.The combustion
produces steam that turns a giant wheel, creating mechanical energy that is
transformed into electrical energy.A
by-product of the burning is carbon gas, which the plant releases into the
air.The carbon accumulates in the
stratosphere, sealing in heat.This “greenhouse
effect” threatens to reshape weather patterns and to melt polar ice, creating
floods.
To restrict carbon emissions, the
European Union prints a limited number of pollution permits.Plants (and others) can buy and sell these
permits among themselves.The reason for
this policy is to reduce pollution as cheaply as possible.Plants that can decrease carbon emissions
cheaply – say, by shifting to a cleaner fuel, like nuclear energy – sell their
permits to plants that can’t control emissions easily.As a result, most of the cleanup is by plants
that clean up cheaply.
For example, suppose that Plant A can reduce carbon
emissions by a ton for 50 euros.This would cost Plant B 100 euros.Then A can
sell its permit to B for 75 euros.This
reduces the real cost of cleaning up the ton by 50 euros (100 minus 50).The savings can preserve jobs and hold down
electrical bills.
Is a
monopoly in the making?
Moreover, the permit market gives us vital information.The permit price reflects the cost to the
polluter of reducing emissions by a ton, since he will buy a permit only if its
price is below the cleanup cost.If
cleanup is cheap for most firms, then they will refuse to buy a permit until its
price falls.That’s the situation
today.Economic anemia in Europe, stemming from the difficulty of governments in
paying their bills, has slowed production, so the European economy is
using less electricity than it otherwise would.The demand for permits has fallen sharply, and their price approaches zero.
This is not the fault of the market.It simply is telling us that Europeans don’t
value more cleanup because economic stagnation has already reduced
pollution.If some Europeans want more
cleanup anyway, then they can buy lots of permits and donate them to a bonfire.This, more or less, was the proposal from the
European Commission – to yank permits off the market and possibly reissue them
later. The Parliament voted it down.
In fact, we might get too much cleanup in the years to come.Since permits are cheap now, an agent could
corner the market by buying them up and then releasing only a few later, at a
price that is high because of their artificial scarcity.Without permits, many power plants won’t be
able to produce, so we may get too little electricity.
Central Asia is not a player in the permit market.But it should follow its performance in order
to learn about the European energy market.Compared to coal, oil is a costly but cleaner fuel (though not as clean
as natural gas).A fall in the permit
price indicates that the demand for oil – as a substitute for coal – is falling
because additional cleanup of carbon emissions is not valued as highly as
before.
The National Bank of Kazakhstan, which manages the nation’s money supply, decided last week not to raise the interest rate at which it lends money to commercial banks. The annual refinancing rate is 5.5%, a historic low. In February 2012, the rate was 7.5%.
This decision is even more generous than it seems. The real value of money depends on what it can buy. When prices rise throughout our economy, the amount of goods that a thousand tenge can purchase falls. At present, prices are rising by roughly 7% per year (which is within the Bank’s target range). A bank that borrows from the National Bank must pay back the loan, plus 5.5% in interest after a year. However, by spending the loan immediately on goods, the borrowing bank avoided the price increase of 7%. So the loan was worth 1.5% to the borrower, even though it had to pay interest. It profited just by borrowing.
The National Bank’s largesse raises some problems. Since banks can make money just by borrowing from the National Bank, some will try to borrow all that they can. At the moment, this is not a concern, because the commercial banks in general are not too active. In 2012, they borrowed little from the refinancing window, the Bank notes. In fact, giving them money may help us, since they may turn around and lend it to businesses and households. This could spur spending in what, for Kazakhstan, is a phlegmatic economy, growing only 5% per year. But if the economy returns to its usual torrid rates of growth (on the order of 9% or 10%), then additional spending by borrowers may raise prices rather than output.
Buddy, can you spare a tenge?
The second problem is a bit more subtle. The refinancing rate can serve two purposes for the National Bank. One is to signal to lenders how active that the National Bank wants them to be. Lowering the refinancing rate is a way of saying that they should lend more. The second purpose is to provide banks in temporary trouble with emergency funds. The two aims don’t always coincide. The National Bank wants banks to step up lending, but not recklessly. In the last months of 2011, more than three years after the financial crisis, the total share of bank loans that were “standard” was only 25%. The National Bank says, charitably, that the banks in 2012 were recovering slowly.
The National Bank could clear things up by designing two policies for the two purposes. To stimulate the economy, the Bank could inject money into it by exchanging tenge for bonds from the public. It could then devote the refinancing loans to bank rescues.
The National Bank is indeed moving towards “open market operations” of bonds. But its main tool for managing the money supply remains the refinancing rate, probably because the bond market in Kazakhstan is still embryonic. Ironically, the market’s development is stymied by the anemic growth in Kazakhstan’s economy – the very problem that open market operations are supposed to resolve. –Leon Taylor tayloralmaty@gmail.com
Good reading
National Bank of Kazakhstan. Monetary policy guidelines of the Republic of Kazakhstan for 2013. www.nationalbank.kz
References
National Bank of Kazakhstan. Statistical bulletin. Various years. www.nationalbank.kz
Silk Road Intelligencer. April 5, 2013. www.silkroadintelligencer.com
In 2008, a real estate bubble burst in Kazakhstan. Foreigners yanked their dollars out of the banks, fearing that they would collapse (and, with foreigners’ help, they did). Because they anticipated (incorrectly) that an ensuing recession would be more severe in Kazakhstan than in the United States, people sold their tenge to Kazakhstan’s central bank in exchange for dollars. Official reserves of dollars emptied.
Without dollars, the National Bank of Kazakhstan would not have been able to defend the tenge against financial shark attacks. And so, in February 2009, the National Bank devalued the tenge, from 120 tenge per dollar to 150 tenge. The Bank hoped that by increasing the tenge cost of buying a dollar, the devaluation would stop the runs for bucks.
The Bank guessed right. But its 25% devaluation sparked controversy for two reasons. First: It cut the value of the banks’ tenge-denominated assets by a fourth, increasing their chances of bankruptcy. Commercial bankers got a Mohawk haircut.
Second: It cut the value (in dollars) of the nation’s sales of goods to foreigners, net of what it bought from them. Before February 2009, Kazakhstan could sell a barrel of oil for, say, 12,000 tenge, or $100. After the devaluation, that barrel was worth only $80.
This problem is general. A devaluation of the tenge reduces the amount of foreign goods that it can buy. A given amount of Kazakhstani goods sold will purchase fewer foreign ones than before. The value of our net sales will fall.
Clinging to contracts
For example, suppose that we trade to Europe 100 barrels of oil for one automobile. Also suppose that we sell in all 1,000 barrels of oil in exchange for 10 autos. After our devaluation, the terms of trade may become, say, 150 barrels for an auto. We thus pay 500 more barrels than before for 10 autos. Our net sales – the “balance of trade” -- fall. Over time, Europeans will realize that the price of our oil has fallen, from 1/100 of an automobile to 1/150, and so they will buy more barrels. This will improve our trade balance. Over time, it will resemble a J – declining, then rising.
The J curve attracted the attention of economists in the early 1970s, when the fall of the dollar failed to increase quickly the value of exports, net of imports, for the United States. Stephen Magee suggested a three-period analysis. In the first period, the old trade contracts are still in force, so the devaluation affects neither prices nor quantities. In the second period, prices adjust to the new exchange rate, but quantities are still fixed. In the third period, quantities finally react to the change in price.
If we devalue our currency, then our balance of trade will improve for sure in the third period, when our lowered prices will increase demand for our exports. Prolonging the first two stages may delay this improvement. That may have happened to Kazakhstan in 2009, when uncertainty about the world economy may have induced oil traders to continue the old contracts.
That year, the response to the weakening of the tenge did not occur rapidly enough for Kazakhstan to avoid an economic slowdown at that time. Devaluations may take longer to work than policymakers realize. –Leon Taylor, tayloralmaty@gmail.com
Good reading
Paul Krugman and Maurice Obstfeld. International economics: Theory and policy. Eighth edition. 2009. Chapter 16 discusses the J curve.
References
Stephen Magee. Currency contracts, pass-through, and devaluation. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity. 1973.
Why is the unemployment rate among youths dropping steeply in Kazakhstan?
In the queue for jobs, youths are almost always at the rear. In the United States, the rate of unemployment among those aged 16 to19 is about 24%, almost three times higher than the rate for the general population (about 8.1% to 8.5%). In Greece, Italy and Spain, high rates of youth unemployment may thwart austerity programs.Economists attribute the disparity to youths’ lack of education and work experience. In Kazakhstan, however, the unemployment rate is lower among youths than adults.
The unemployment rate – the share of the workforce that is seeking futilely for jobs – has been falling in Kazakhstan since 2001 at least. The decline is especially sharp for youths. In 2001, the unemployment rate for those aged 15 through 24 was almost twice as high as that for the population in general (19.1% and 10.4% respectively). By 2010, the unemployment rate for youths had fallen beneath the general rate (5.2% and 5.8%). That trend continued in 2011 (4.6% and 5.4%). Youth unemployment is no longer a special problem in Kazakhstan. Why not?
Service with a smile
One clue may lie in the changing nature of work in Kazakhstan. Like unemployment in general, that among youths has been seasonal, with the peak in the first quarter and the trough in the third. But seasonality has virtually disappeared in both unemployment rates since 2010. The most likely explanation is that outdoors work has become less common than it was. The economy is shifting from farming to services.
Some services – such as education, health and finance – require skills acquired only in school. If youths are better educated than adults, then the demand to hire them, rather than adults, may be increasing. But this would imply that areas where production is relatively intensive in these skills -- the cities – might see a drop in relative unemployment. In reality, the unemployment rates in Almaty and Astana were higher than the national rate from 2005 through 2010. Almaty's rate was a sixth higher in 2009 and remained a tenth higher in 2010. Astana's rate has been consistently lower than Almaty's but was still a twentieth higher than the national rate in 2010. Among the oblasts, the only unemployment rate that was consistently as high as those of the cities was Mangistau's.
The unemployment rate might also drop among youths because they are leaving the labor force in order to return to school. After all, the unemployment rate is the ratio of unemployed workers to the labor force. When an unemployed worker stops looking for work, thus departing the labor force, the relative reduction in the numerator of this ratio exceeds the one in its denominator, so the ratio falls. (An example might make this clearer. Begin with the fraction 4/5, or .8. Subtract 1 from the numerator and the denominator. The resulting fraction is ¾, or .75 – lower than before.)
But in general, dropping out of the labor force does not dominate the unemployment rate. If it did, then the fall in the number of unemployed workers should exceed the rise in the number of employed workers. But in Kazakhstan, the annual number of newly employed workers is seven times the annual reduction in the number of unemployed workers. The economy tends to create jobs rather than discourage workers.
The rising tide lifts the smallest boats
A final possibility is that the labor force creates more jobs for the young than for adults, so that the unemployment rate falls more steeply among youths than among older workers. In Kazakhstan, the rate of increase in jobs is not impressive -- an average of 2.2% from 2003 through 2010, only a fraction of the growth rate of the national economy. However, the population is also growing slowly – generally from 1% to 2% per year – so that growth in the labor force might easily cover growth in the population.
Perhaps the unemployment rate among youths is falling because economic growth creates jobs especially for the “first hired, last fired.” In a recession, firms lay off youths because these are their most inexperienced workers. When recovery ensues, firms hire them back. But this applies to most market economies, where the youth unemployment rate usually exceeds the adult rate. Perhaps the longevity of the economic recovery here – 15 years, except possibly for 2009 – increases relative demand for young workers, since most adult workers who are capable have already been hired.Such speculation aside, the mystery of the missing jobless among Kazakhstani youths continues. --Leon Taylor, tayloralmaty@gmail.com
Notes
All Kazakhstani figures are from the national statistical agency (www.stat.kz). The U.S. data are from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (www.bls.gov).
Virtually all analysts blame the global
recession of 2008-9 on the financial collapse at that time – and for good
reason.In Kazakhstan, the government took
over some of the largest financial institutions – including BTA and Allianz
banks – to dissuade foreign investors from yanking their funds out of the
finance sector, which could have brought on a general default.
Yet, five years later, the world’s largest
economies still ail.The United States economy grows by less than 2% per
year; Japan’s
is stagnant; the euro area is contracting slightly.Even the BRICs are disappointing: Brazil, 1.4%; Russia,
2.9%; India, 4.5%; China,
7.9%.What gives?
In the gloomy postwar period, the
idiosyncratic economist Joseph Schumpeter suggested that capitalism would so
succeed that it would fail.
For economic growth, we should thank the
entrepreneur who newly organizes production, Schumpeter said.Price competition is anemic; it is the
entrepreneur who blasts markets wide open. The airplane, the telephone, the
automobile, the computer: Those remake the economy, not Red Tag
Specials.
Economists are not always cognizant of
this.“…The problem that is usually
being visualized is how capitalism administers existing structures, whereas the
relevant problem is how it creates and destroys them,” Schumpeter wrote.“….A theoretical construction which neglects
this essential element of the case neglects all that is most typically
capitalist about it; even if correct in logic as well as in fact, it is like Hamlet without the Danish prince.”
Let’s
play ‘Monopoly’
Far from the economist’s paragon of an
economy of many small firms, entrepreneurs construct monopolies.Innovation in the rayon industry enabled
three firms to control 90% of U.S.
production soon after World War I, noted Schumpeter, an economic historian.With a lockhold on the market for a unique
product, the entrepreneur will sock the consumer with high prices. Schumpeter thus doubts the neoclassical conclusion
that economic profits are a sign that resources – what we use in production –
are allocated inefficiently.If
Microsoft makes economic profits by selling Windows – which used to be a given
-- then it must not face enough competition, say the neoclassical economists;
the profits, which are due to scarcity, signal that the market is not producing
enough operating systems to satisfy consumers.Schumpeter counters that the entrepreneur must anticipate economic profits
before he will risk innovation. Profits
that look inefficient in the short run may stimulate economic growth in the
long run.The very precariousness of
these profits leads the monopoly to erect barriers to entry in the short run;
the barriers do not create the profits but result from them.Even if a hurdle could somehow generate
profits, these would attract the debilitating attentions of rivals soon
enough.
In a sense, we become creatures of the
entrepreneur.“It is…the producer who as
a rule initiates economic change, and consumers are educated by him if
necessary; they are, as it were, taught to want new things….” So it may not be
surprising that we don't really want the entrepreneur.He doesn't fit into the comfortable society
that he has made possible for us.Unlike
us, he is not a hedonist, since the diminishing satisfaction of another dollar
consumed would long ago have discouraged his pursuit of billions.He is instead driven by the terrifying
desires to conquer others and to found a dynasty comparable to a “medieval lordship.”“Successful innovation is…a task sui generis.It is a feat not of intellect, but of
will.It is a special case of the social
phenomenon of leadership.”
Even his “joy of creating” threatens the comfort
that we take in familiar surroundings.His independence, his penchant for taking risks, frighten us; we just
want to hang onto our pleasant lives.“…Stabilized capitalism is a contradiction in terms.”
So, over time, we
drive him out of existence, probably through government regulation.“There would be nothing left for
entrepreneurs to do.” Profits would vanish.The rate of interest would fall to zero, since the only function of
interest is to divert resources from conventional uses toward entrepreneurial ones;
rentiers would pass from the scene.Capitalism would lead to affluence, but
affluence would lead to timidity – and that, in turn, to socialism.“The true pacemakers of socialism were not
the intellectuals or agitators who preached it but the Vanderbilts, Carnegies
and Rockefellers.” Although Schumpeter
thought that socialism would survive, he did not enthuse over the prospect. For
him, socialism was the land of the lotus eaters.
For
whom the bell tolls
The entrepreneur colludes in his own
extinction by providing the means of replacing him – information about
innovating that can generate a routine.“The more accurately…we learn to know the natural and social world, the
more perfect our control of facts becomes; and the greater the extent, with
time and progressive rationalization, within which things can be simply
calculated, and indeed quickly and reliably calculated, the more the
significance of [the entrepreneurial] function decreases.”“…Innovation itself is being reduced to
routine.”The rise of the corporation
was evidence of this trend; divested of managerial duties, the owner’s attitude
becomes “more distant, less personal, more rationalized.”In not the most prescient of comparisons,
Schumpeter suggests that the entrepreneur will become enervated, “just as the
importance of the military commander has already diminished.”Business management will resemble a
bureaucracy. Most important, the leader will yield to the mundane: “The
perfectly bureaucratized giant industrial unit not only ousts the small or
medium-sized firm and ‘expropriates’ its owners, but in the end it also ousts
the entrepreneur and expropriates the bourgeoisie as a class which in the
process stands to lose not only its income but also what is infinitely more
important, its function.” Capitalism
would destroy the old order just as surely as it had created it.
The decline of the entrepreneur will gentle
the business cycle and retard economic growth.Output also stabilizes because the number of large firms grows with
cumulative innovations over time.New
entrepreneurs can then introduce their innovations by taking over existing
large firms rather than by driving small ones into bankruptcy.
When the entrepreneur finally was dead,
then the affluence of the society that he had created could easily provide a
surplus from which to support those who could no longer find the jobs that had
once been created by his gambles.
Schumpeter summarizes his argument:
“Capitalism, whilst economically stable, and even gaining in stability,
creates, by rationalizing the human mind, a mentality and a way of life
incompatible with its own fundamental conditions, motives and social
institutions, and will be changed, although not by economic necessity and
probably at even some sacrifice of economic welfare, into an order of things which
it will be merely matter of taste and terminology to call Socialism or not.”
The Keynesian notion that more consumption could salvage an economy from
depression was, in fact, a product of capitalism itself, which had created a
class too affluent to worry about saving for the future.
Schumpeter – a failed banker himself -- did
not deny the importance of banks.The
entrepreneur must turn to them to create credit for her; otherwise, she will
not be able to bid away resources from normal production.It is the banker, not the entrepreneur, who
truly assumes risk – and maybe too much of it, judging from 2008.At the same time, the re-regulation of banks
ensuing from 2008 may block entrepreneurial breakthroughs that could resuscitate
a comatose economy – in a Schumpeterian perspective, at least.
The most contrarian argument of this
contrarian Austrian is that we should view today’s economy against the long
sweep of social forces and history.-- Leon
Taylor, tayloralmaty@gmail.com
Notes
1.The reported rates of economic growth are in gross domestic product,
adjusted for inflation, and come from the back pages of The Economist.
2.All
quotes are from Schumpeter’s writings.
“…Danish prince”: Capitalism, socialism and democracy, pages 84-6
Rayon industry: Business cycles, page 316.
“want new things”:The
theory of economic development, page 65.
“medieval lordship”: The
theory of economic development, page 93
“phenomenon of leadership”: “The instability
of capitalism,” page 379
“joy of creating”:The
theory of economic development, pages 93-4
“contradiction in terms”:Business
cycles, page 405.
“entrepreneurs to do”: Capitalism,
socialism and democracy, page 131
“Carnegies and Rockfellers”: Capitalism, socialism and democracy,
page 134
“function decreases”:The
theory of economic development, pages 85-6
“more rationalized”:Business
cycles, page 282
“military commander has already
diminished”: The theory of economic development, page 86
“infinitely more important, its
function”:Capitalism, socialism and democracy, page 134
Driving small firms bankrupt:“The explanation of the business cycle”, page
299.
“call Socialism or not”:“The instability of capitalism”, 385-386.
Good
reading (all from Schumpeter)
Business
cycles: A theoretical, historical, and statistical analysis of the capitalist process.. New York:
McGraw-Hill.Abridged.1964 [1939].
Capitalism,
socialism and democracy. New
York: Harper.Third edition.2008 [1950].
“The explanation of the business
cycle”.Economica 21.December
1927.
“The instability of capitalism”.The Economic Journal 38. September 1928
The
theory of economic development: An inquiry into profits, capital, credit, interest,
and the business cycle.New
Jersey: Transaction.1982 [1911].
How will Uzbekistan’s debit policy affect its economy?
Uzbekistan is moving toward a cash-free economy, by asphyxiating it with red tape. Now a typical worker in the country’s bulimic government can spend his paycheck only by using a debit card at approved stores, reports EurasiaNet.org, a Soros offshoot. This policy is supposed to discourage tax evasion by eliminating cash income. But it may have a few other effects as well.
Consumer spending may fall, because it is more troublesome than before. This may slow the economy. Not by much, perhaps: To keep its economy afloat, Uzbekistan relies heavily on sales to foreigners; exports are almost a third of the economy (as measured by gross domestic product), estimated the World Bank. But at a time when residents of most countries still seem to spend too little, yet another constraint on consumption is hardly welcome.
The debit policy may affect financial markets in curious ways. Initially, the amount of money supplied need not change, since this is the sum of cash and checking accounts. The government is just substituting the latter for the former. But the banks may lend out the money that is added to checking accounts, and this will increase money supply. Moreover, if the banks lend to producers rather than consumers, then a rise in real investment – such as expansions of factories and farms -- may offset the fall in consumption. The economy’s capacity to produce will grow; but as long as world demand for Uzbek products remains anemic, the new capacity will go unused.
Because spending has become inconvenient, the demand for Uzbek money will fall. This will pull down the price of holding a som – the amount of interest that the som could have earned had it been lent out rather than held. Interest rates will fall; borrowing will become cheaper. Producers may borrow more to finance new capacity, even if they can’t use it right away.
In short, the debit policy may tilt the Uzbek economy toward investment and away from private consumption. Since the government still controls much production, its new policy may increase the state’s presence in the economy over time. Tashkent, which has never welcomed markets with as much verve as Astana has, thus delays its transition to a Western-style economy, just as it has for 20 years. Foreign investors won’t rejoice. –Leon Taylor, tayloralmaty@gmail.com
References
Joanna Lillis. Malls muscling out markets in Tashkent. February 28, 2013. EurasiaNet.org
World Bank. World Development Indicators. www.worldbank.org
