Department of Mathematics

Koen Schoors studied how institutional quality moderates the relationship between generalized trust and preferences for redistribution. It has been well established in the literature that generalized trust is conducive to greater support for redistribution because it reduces expectations of cheating and free-riding among others.

Irina Levina studied evidence from Russian firms to explore whether decentralization of firms can be successful under weak institutions. She introduced the concepts of real decentralization for the delegation of decision-making authority in firms to professional people hired though open competition, and of cautious decentralization – for the delegation to people hired through connections. Irina demonstrated that really decentralized Russian firms are, on average, significantly more likely to implement investment.

Gerhard Toews analyzed the consequences of sending "enemies of the people" to the Gulag. He showed that areas around camps with a larger share of enemies among prisoners are more prosperous today, as captured by night lights per capita, firm productivity, wages, and education.

Natalia Naumenko studied the impact of the 1933 Soviet famine on population and urbanization patterns and argued that the shortage of labor during the crucial years of rapid industrialization hindered the development of cities in areas struck by the famine. 

Tenured HSE Professor Fuad Aleskerov, who is the head of the Faculty of Economic Sciences’ Department of Mathematics, has become a member of the Informatics section of the Academia Europaea.

Inna Zaitseva studied players' incentives to exert different levels of effort in different games. The hypothesis of her research suggests that players can express their loyalty to the values of their club by increasing the level of effort in matches, which are considered as principal for the club. One of the explicit criteria for principal matches in football is a derby status of a game. This research demonstrates, that players in Bundesliga in season 2017-2018 exerted a greater level of effort in home derby games, which supports the idea of players’ loyalty to club’s values.

Gari Walkowitz discussed the effectiveness of (apparently) fair procedures - which are under the full control of the agent in situations which entail a conflict of interest and when social pressures to conform are high - and analyzed a specific form of inter-personal deception: moral hypocrisy, i.e., saying one thing (trying to appear moral to others) but doing another (act immorally).

Can party loyalty be motivated by social and cultural identities transmitted across generations and collective memory? Eren Arbatli says "yes", analyzing the history of Sasun, a mountainous region of the Ottoman Empire located in Eastern Turkey.

Today was the third day of the Autumn school 'Current Trends in Decision-making Analysis' organized by the International Laboratory of Decision Choice and Analysis. The invited lecturers included outstanding academics and researchers Itzhak Gilboa, Theocharis Grigoriadis, Michel Grabisch, Gabrielle Demange, Saptarshi Mukherjee, Stefan Napel, Agnieszka Rusinowska, William Thomson, Katarína Cechlárová.

During the second day of the Autumn school on Current Trends in Decision-making Analysis participants heard the presentations by Michel Grabisch, Agnieszka Rusinowska, and William Thomson.