The behaviour of labour productivity in the United Kingdom since the onset of the recession in early 2008 constitutes a puzzle. Over four years after the recession began labour productivity is still below its previous peak level. This paper considers the hypothesis that economic capacity can be permanently damaged by financial crises. A model which allows a financial crisis to have both a short-run effect on the growth rate of labour productivity and a long-run effect on its level is estimated on a panel of 61 countries over 1955-2010. The main finding is that a banking crisis as defined by Reinhart and Rogoff on average reduces the short-run growth rate of labour productivity by between 0.6% and 0.7% per year and the long-run level by between 0.84% and 1.1% (depending on the method of estimation), for each year that the crisis lasts. A banking crisis also reduces the long-run level of capital per worker by an average of about 1%. The effect on GDP per capita is about double the effect on GDP per worker since there is a long-run, negative effect on the employment ratio.JEL Classifications: E23, E32, J24, O47

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and Mar ia Sebasti a-Barriel Bank of EnglandWe examine the hypothesis that capacity can be permanently damaged by financial, particularly banking, crises. A model which allows a financial crisis to have both a short-run effect on the growth rate of labor productivity and a long-run effect on its level is estimated on 61 countries over 1954-2010. A banking crisis as defined by Reinhart and Rogoff reduces the long-run level of GDP per worker, and also that of capital per worker, by on average 1.1 percent, for each year that the crisis lasts; it also reduces the TFP level by 0.8%. The long run, negative effect on the level of GDP per capita, 1.8 percent, is substantially larger. So there is also a hit to employment. The effects on labor productivity, capital and TFP are larger in developing than in developed countries; the opposite is the case for employment.JEL Codes: E23, E32, J24

This paper focuses on the non-linear adjustment of import prices in national currency due to shocks in exchange rates and foreign prices, measured in the exporters' currency, of products originating outside the Euro area and imported into European Union countries (EU-15). The paper looks at three different types of non-linearities: (a) non-proportional adjustment (the size of the adjustment grows more than proportionally with the size of the misalignments), (b) asymmetric adjustment to cost-increasing and cost-decreasing shocks, and (c) the existence of thresholds in the size of misalignments below which no adjustment takes place. There is evidence of more than proportional adjustment towards long-run equilibrium in manufacturing industries. In these industries, the adjustment is faster the further current import prices are from their implied long-run equilibrium. In contrast, a proportional linear adjustment cannot be rejected for some other imports (especially within agricultural and commodity imports). There is also strong evidence of asymmetry in the adjustment to long-run equilibrium. Deviations from longrun equilibrium due to exchange rate appreciations of the home currency result in a faster adjustment than those caused by home currency depreciation. Finally, we also find that adjustment takes place in the industries in our sample only when deviations are above certain thresholds, and that these thresholds tend to be somewhat smaller for manufacturing industries than for commodities.

Authors: Kokoreva Maria Sergeevna - assistant professor, lecturer, HSE Higher School of Economics, deputy head of the school of finance, researcher of the scientific and educational laboratory of corporate finance, director of the joint educational program for the preparation of bachelors in the direction of "Economics" USU and HSE. E-mail: maria_kokoreva@mail.ru. Anastasia N. Stepanova National Research University The Higher School of Economics, anstepanova@hse.ru In this paper we study the performance effects of capital structure, ownership structure choices and corporate governance mechanisms of Russian companies. To address the lack of research in corporate performance modeling in emerging markets we contribute to the literature by introducing cluster analysis of financial architecture and market performance of Russian companies. Our idea is to find out the efficient and inefficient types of financial architecture in emerging markets. On the sample of 50+ largest Russian nonfinancial companies within the period of 2005-2010 years we demonstrate the existence of three sustainable types of financial architecture in Russia. Using cluster analysis we form the cluster of companies in pre-crisis period and then demonstrate the relationship between the financial architecture type and the level of corporate market performance.