An Empirical Study of Post-Soviet Sustainable Development

This book investigates which factors can be shown to have had a significant strengthening or dampening effect on sustainable development in the post-Soviet space. To examine this question empirically, sustainable development is be considered the dependent variable, measured according to four indicators: a) the poverty headcount ratio at national poverty lines, b) child mortality per 1,000 live births, c), the percentage of the population using safely managed drinking water services and d) the percentage of the population using the Internet (tested as both a y and an x variable). The testing was conducted by using multivariate regressions to investigate estimate models of the interaction between the aforementioned dependent variables and several independent variables, including a) mean years of schooling in the population aged 25 and older, b) percentage of the GDP made up of natural resource rents, c) the percentage of merchandise exports made up of manufactured goods, d) the percentage of GDP made up of personal remittances received, e) incidence of bribery (as an indicator of rule of law), f) attitudes towards Islam (in Muslim-majority countries), and g) level of democratization.