Seminar ‘Market Studies and Spatial Economics’ Dedicated to the Memory of Evgeny Zhelobodko
The XIV Annual April HSE Conference’s seminar ‘Market Studies and Spatial Economics’ is dedicated to the memory of Evgeny Zhelobodko.
March 27, 2013, marked the untimely death of Evgeny (‘Zhenya’) Zhelobodko, age 40.
Zhenya studied and then worked for a long period of time at Novosibirsk State University where he taught theoretical economics. It was namely in Novosibirsk, while working with scientists at the Sobolev Institute of Mathematics, that he evolved into a researcher.
The last two years of Zhenya’s life were closely linked with a project launched in November 2011 at the HSE’s International Center for Market Studies and Spatial Economics. The project’s outstanding beginnings represented by the publication of the paper ‘Monopolistic Competition: Beyond the CES’ in Econometrica, were owed largely to Zhenya. The basic idea of this work, written in collaboration with Sergey Kokovin, Mathieu Parenti, and Jacques-François Thisse and known as ZKPT, was his.
However, Zhenya’s most valuable quality was not that he was a storehouse of ideas for scientific research; nor that as a scientist, he was able to see the fascinatingly deep and beautiful essence of any problem beneath numerous layers of details, as he did, for instance, in ZKPT; nor that his unique erudition was the secret to his success, although he seemed to know everything possible about theoretical economics; and, nor was it Zhenya’s organizational talents which made the Center itself possible as well as a series of outstanding summer and winter schools, international conferences, and seminars, and that he was always fantastically efficient, responsible, and perfectly punctual. Zhenya’s main gift, embodied in everything he did–as a scientist, an organizer, and simply as a person–was his attitude towards people. His co-authors were inspired by his enthusiasm, and research discussions with Zhenya were both a pleasure and a valuable opportunity for self-development. With his mild charisma and inexhaustible sense of humor, he was able to rally his colleagues to organize summer schools and conferences. Moreover, Zhenya possessed the rare ability to make friends; he ‘believed in people’ (as he repeatedly said) and loved life.
The XIV Annual April HSE Conference’s seminar ‘Market Studies and Spatial Economics’ is dedicated to the memory of Evgeny Zhelobodko–a remarkable scientist and a shining human being.
Jacques-François Thisse
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