An expert in the economics of transition, corporate finance, organizational economics as well as law and economics, Dr. Ichiro Iwasaki, Professor of Economics at the Institute of Economic Research (Hitotsubashi University, Japan), will present a lecture entitled ‘What we learnt from the Russian experience during the global financial crisis: A corporate governance perspective’ at the upcoming XVII April International Academic Conference on Economic and Social Development. He recently agreed to speak with the HSE news service about his research, his long interest in Russian economics, and his view on how to achieve successful international academic collaboration.
On January 15, Professor Larry Kotlikoff gave a talk on measuring inequality in lifetime spending power within different age cohorts in the USA, net tax rates facing Americans, and current wealth indicators.
Mortgage borrowers who have unconfirmed income turn out to be unable to repay the loan less often than public officials, whose income consists of their official salary only. The probability of loan default is also considerably influenced by the cost of the loan. These were the findings of a study conducted by Alexander Karminsky, HSE Professor, and Agata Lozinskaya, Junior Research Fellow at the HSE campus in Perm.
In Russia, the demand for migrant workers is highest in economically developed and resource-extracting regions, in areas with low population density, and in construction and industrial companies. Employers prefer to hire low-skilled migrants with no education beyond secondary school and limited work experience of less than a year, since these workers are much cheaper than locals. These are some of the findings from a study by Elena Vakulenko, Assiant Professor at the Department of Applied Economics, HSE Faculty of Economic Sciences, and HSE student Roman Leukhin.
On November 6 and 7 ICEF and the International Laboratory of Financial Economics (LFE) held the Fourth International Moscow Finance Conference. Christian Julliard, Academic Director of LFE, has talked to HSE News Service about the conference and about the education of future economists at the International College of Economics and Finance.
At the beginning of ‘Nobel Week,’ HSE Professor Konstantin Sonin gave his traditional prediction on his blog, forecasting who might win this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics. The winner will be determined on October 12.
The current crisis in Russia is different from all others in its heightened uncertainty and unpredictable consequences, and recent events are comparable to the transformative crisis that occurred in Russia in the 1990s, the Director of the Centre of Development Institute, Natalia Akindinova, and HSE Academic Supervisor Evgeny Yasin said in their paper ‘A New Stage of Economic Development in Post-Soviet Russia.’ The researchers propose four possible scenarios for how the Russian economy might change, the most probable of which, they posit, is a so-called ‘mobilisation scenario.’
Russian firms prefer to freeze rather than cut employee wages during crises, reasoning that high inflation will cause real wages to drop anyway, while nominal wage cuts may prompt valued employees to leave, suggests Alexander Larin, Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Economics, HSE Branch in Nizhny Novgorod, in his paper 'Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity: Unions' Achievement or Employers' Choice?'
Students who choose to pursue a master's or postgraduate degree are at a distinct advantage over those who stop after receiving a bachelor's degree, and can expect higher starting salaries and a wider career choice. Some students, particularly those studying the humanities, medicine, and natural sciences, are more likely to pursue further studies beyond the undergraduate programme, observes Yana Roschina, senior research fellow at the HSE's Laboratory of Economics and Social Research, in her report 'Factors Influencing Russian Students' Educational and Employment Plans'.
How Russia has become an industrial economy; Class bias in Russia's judicial system; Why Russia could benefit from zero import duties with the EU; Why Russian elites prefer foreign jurisdictions; What is fake economic growth; Why the reforms of the 2000s have failed; Whether currency depreciation must inevitably lead to inflation—these were the most interesting research papers in 2014 relevant to Russia, according to Opec.ru.
