Federal and regional maternity benefits such as 'maternal capital', larger child allowances, and other measures introduced since 2007 to improve the country's demography have led to more births, but have not yet contributed to effective fertility rates in Russia. A paper bySergey Zakharov and Thomas Freyka in the HSE's new Demographic Review journal examines Russia's reproductive trends over the past half-century in an attempt to make projections concerning the future effects of the country's demographic policies.
After the Russian Unified State Exam (USE) was introduced, additional exam preparation did not lose its popularity. While there was previously a preference for tutors from the university a student had selected, now students are finding instructors ‘off the street’ to prepare them for the USE, Ilya Prakhov, Research Fellow in HSE’s International Laboratory for Institutional Analysis of Economic Reforms (LIA), uncovered in his study, ‘The Dynamics of Investment and the Return on Additional Pre-entry Coaching’.
On September 25 a presentation of the Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI), of which HSE is a partner, took place. The purpose of the project is to integrate Russian academic journals into the international exchange network of scientific information. RSCI has listed 1000 journals, based on bibliometric indicators and expert reviews, to go on the Web of Science platform.
When people have a choice, they can either rely on their own information or on that received from those around them. The more emotional an individual's relationship with their own data, the higher the likelihood that, when making a decision, they will be led by that rather than by other people's opinions. This also applies to investors' activity on the financial markets – as research by HSE Psychology Faculty Dean Vasily Klyucharev, and researchers from the University of Basel Rafael Huber and Jörg Rieskamp.
One third of all graduates from regional colleges and universities plan to move elsewhere. Most would like to relocate to another Russian city, while some 7% of graduates are planning to leave the country, according to the study 'Migration Intentions of Graduates of Russia’s Regional Higher Educational Institutions' by Elena Varshavskaya, Professor at the HSE's Department of Human Resources Management, and Olga Choudinovskikh, Director of the Centre for Migration Policy.
A cardio-undershirt, a cyber piggy bank, a flying advertising platform, and other unexpected inventions were all the result of the second FabLab Weekend hackathon, which was carried out by HSE’s Prototyping Centre. Participants had just 48 hours to create a prototype of a useful technological product ready to enter the market. The final presentation took place on September 22, when the winners were announced.
The HSE Institute of Regional Studies and Urban Planning held a panel discussion entitled ‘Developing Cities and Infrastructure’ as part of the Russian-Japanese forum ‘Points of Intersection: Business, Technology, Culture’ that took place in Moscow. The discussion focused on development opportunities in Moscow and the adoption of solutions to urban problems already applied in Tokyo.
On September 20, the three-day international conference ‘Modern Econometric Tools and Applications’ came to an end at HSE’s Nizhny Novgorod campus. The conference was organized by the Higher School of Economics and the New Economic School (NES). Academics from Canada, France, Great Britain, and other countries discussed cutting-edge research in the field of theoretical and applied econometrics, in particular stochastic economic processes.
Generally in Russia, being childless is an involuntary situation associated with infertility, age, and being single. However, being childless in Moscow is often a deliberate decision. Aside from a biological inability to bear children, childlessness in Moscow is likely to be associated with higher levels of education, income security, the structure of the family of origin, and certain attitudes, i.e. that having children is not necessary for happiness, according to Svetlana Biryukova, Research Fellow of the HSE's Centre for Studies of Income and Living Standards.
