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From May 29 to June 18 students can vote for HSE’s best teachers of the academic year. This year there is no need to come to the university to vote. Students can submit their scores online via LMS. 

The relationships between the government and operators are regulated by a contract. In theory such contracts offer a choice among a continuum of options, but due to the complexity, it is impossible to realize them. Therefore the government usually offers a contract with just two alternatives, for instance, a fixed-price or a cost-plus one. However, using such binary contracts instead of the ones obtained in theory leads to a sufficient decrease in social welfare. On the presentation of the article «Full versus binary menus: What are the welfare gains?» the professor of Paris School of Economics David Martimort told us how, actually, big the loss of the society is.

After the collapse of the Communist system left parties found themselves in a difficult situation. Some of them preferred to adapt to the reality and changed radical views to more democratic ones, while others remained faithful to their ideology. According to research, the last managed to retain support of workers and lower middle class. However, those left parties that had become more democratic lost their traditional constituency, most of which turned to radical right parties. On the presentation of the article «The Left Parties Choices and The Emergence of The Radical Right» the postgraduate student of Columbia University Maria Snegovaya explained why that happened.

Topic: "Do institutions cause social trust? Evidence from an institutional reform"

Interpersonal trust has a great impact on life quality and economic development. What are its origins? Why are people in some countries inclined to trust each other while in others they are not? In his work "Do institutions cause social trust? Evidence from an institutional reform» NRU HSE research fellow Denis Ivanov told us how police reform and control of corruption can influence the level of social trust.

From April 11 to 14, HSE is holding its XVIII April International Academic Conference on Economic and Social Development. Conference Programme Committee members Fuad Alekserov and Andrei Yakovlev discuss the key themes and main reports that will be presented at the conference. This conference will draw around 2,000 people, including 200 international participants.

Each year HSE holds the Student Project Contest, which allows projects deemed important for the development of the university at least and all of society at most to receive financial, organisational, or any other type of support to help them succeed.

Topic: "Elections, Protest and Trust in Government: A Natural Experiment from Russia"
co-authored with Timothy Frye

What influences a level of trust between a government and citizens? It seems that one of key factors that determine it is fair elections. However, according to some studies, in autocracies post-election protests play an important role in the development of the trust of population. For instance, in Russian, an attitude of citizens toward the government is significantly improved in case such protests are not forbidden by the authorities. On the seminar dedicated to the article «Elections, Protest and Trust in Government: A Natural Experiment from Russia» the professor of NRU HSE Ekaterina Borisova spoke about that in more detail.

Due to the ability to influence people’s sentiments, mass media is often called the fourth power. Because of this, government usually tries to establish some sort of censure in order to control information provided to the population. However, what is the effect of mass media in political sphere without such control? Particularly, how does it affect turnout? In course of experiments it was revealed that in Russia the presence of independent TV in a region increases turnout in it. The professor of NRU HSE Michael Rochlitz spoke about this and other results on the presentation of an article «Does Independent Media Matter in a Non-Democratic Election? Experimental Evidence from Russia».

Millions of people around the world watch football championships, rooting for a country team, and national team players strive for victory in order to earn fame for themselves, for their country and not to let their fans down. How can a team win a football match? According to some researches, together with players’ talent one of the components of the success is a level of social capital in the country, which positively influences the quality of team performance. Presenting an article «The role of social capital in collective action problem: the case of national football teams», the professor of NRU HSE Inna Zaytseva spoke about this result in more detail.HSE Seminar on Political Economy

What is the most efficient way to organize procurement? On the one hand, outsourcing procurement procedure to authorized agencies, which operate in the competitive environment, must lead to a decrease in costs. On the other hand, inasmuch as they belong to public sector, using such organizations do not solve such problems as corruption in sphere of procurement. On the presentation of an article «Corruption perception and competition in public procurement: empirical evidence from Russian regions» the professor of HSE Elena Podkolzina told wether it is better for a procurer to organize procurement himself or delegate this procedure to authorized agencies.