Research & Expertise

It is believed that carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere are mainly regulated by ‘direct’ economic instruments - the carbon tax and the Emissions Trading System (ETS). However, a comparative analysis has shown that ‘indirect’ instruments, such as excise taxes on motor fuel and other energy taxes, did not yield any lesser impact than their ‘direct’ counterparts, and, over time, were even more effective.

Recently the Laboratory of Topological Methods in Dynamics, which is headed by Professor Olga Pochinka on HSE’s Nizhny Novgorod campus, received international status. Professor Pochinka spoke with the HSE News Service about the applied use of research in fundamental mathematics and her grand plans for the future.  This interview is the first of a special series on HSE’s international laboratories.

The main channel for transmitting the value of volunteerism in Russia is from parents to children, HSE University researchers have found. Younger generations in families begin helping others as they grow up, following the example set by their elders.

On April 6-10, 2020 in Moscow, National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE University), with the support of the World Bank, will be hosting the XXI April International Academic Conference on Economic and Social Development. The Conference's Programme Committee will be chaired by Professor Evgeny Yasin, HSE University's academic supervisor.

More than 64% of employed Russians work evenings, nights or weekends, and this is one of the highest figures among European countries. Andrei Shevchuk and Anna Krasilnikova were the first to study the extent of nonstandard working hours in Russia and its impact on work-life balance.

Researchers in cognitive psychology at HSE University have experimentally demonstrated that the colours and orientations of objects are stored and processed independently in working memory. However, it is easier for a person to remember these features when they belong to a single object: for example, it is easier for a person to remember and understand one graph on which both parameters are indicated (with a colour and a line shape, for example), than two different graphs in which the two parameters are shown separately. The results of the experiment were published in Acta Psychologica journal.

In June, faculty members from HSE’s School of Cultural Studies, the School of Philosophy, and the Poletayev Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities met with colleagues from the University of Pittsburgh (USA) and a Russian art historian to participate in a round table on the importance of gender studies in the humanities. The researchers discussed questions such as what historians, philosophers, and historians can achieve when approaching their fields of study from the standpoint of gender studies, and what the state of gender studies is in contemporary Russia and abroad.

Indiana University Press (USA) recently published Seasoned Socialism: Gender and Food in Late Soviet Everyday Life, edited by A. Lakhtikova, A. Brintlinger and I. Gluschenko. In addition to serving as a volume editor, Associate Professor of the Faculty of Humanities of the School of Cultural Studies Irina Gluschenko authored the chapter, ‘”I Hate Cooking!”: Emancipation and Patriarchy in Late Soviet Film.’

‘State capacity’ refers to a state’s ability to make and effectively implement decisions in domestic and foreign policy. In a study, HSE University political scientists evaluated the state capacity of 142 countries. Based on their findings, the researchers created and trialed a state capacity index, identified eight models of state capacity, and compiled a general international ranking.

Medieval horror, vampires, sorcerers, mysterious monks and the rising dead, alongside real historical figures and stories about the Russian Civil War wrapped in the aura of mysticism – this is perhaps the shortest formula for Daurian Gothic. Alexei Mikhalev, Doctor of Political Science, discusses this phenomenon and its evolution.