The Western Borderlands: The place of eastern Galicia and Volhynia in the Ukrainian State. OSW Study 43/2013

The regions of Ukraine are strongly diversified. These differences are subject to historical conditions and attempts at unification which have been made over the past seventy years have proven that these differences will be impossible to reduce in the foreseeable future and will continue to bear an impact on Ukraine’s domestic policy. Western Ukraine (Eastern Galicia and Volhynia) is a peripheral region in economic, political and cultural terms. Although it accounts for approximately 14% of Ukraine’s territory and 15% of the country’s population live there, the region generates only around 10% of the country’s GDP. Its metropolis, Lviv, Ukraine’s seventh largest city, was traditionally among the key centres in the nation’s history. However, its role in an independent Ukraine has been marginalised partly due to the fact that a significant part of its elite moved to Kyiv. This is also the most ethnically homogeneous region, where Russian speakers make up rather a small part of the population.

Performance Indicators in Agricultural Financial Markets. Factor Markets Working Document No. 43, May 2013

This study attempts to develop performance indicators for the financial markets based on the findings in an earlier Factor Markets Working Paper (No. 33, “Agricultural credit market institutions: A comparison of selected European countries”) and on FADN (Farm Accountancy Data Network) data. Two indicators were developed. One measured the long-term economic sustainability of agricultural firms since the financial characteristics of the firms were perceived as important factors when rejecting a loan applicant. If the indicator works, it should show that a low value in this indicator is related to the performance in the financial markets. The second indicator was the loan-to-value (LTV), or debt-to-asset ratio, the reasoning behind this indicator is that low values can point to credit constraints, and in WP 33 we saw that the interviewed experts expected LTVs to be much higher than what is actually the case. We find that the first indicator can’t be used to measure the performance of the financial institutions, since we can’t show any relationship between the indicator and activities in the financial markets. However, the indicator is valuable for its measurement of the long-term financial sustainability of the agricultural sector, or of the firms. The loan-to-value indicator does imply that most countries would have room to increase the credit.