
Scholars from Moscow and Vladivostok Join Efforts to Study Institutes and Preferences in Economic Behaviour
Applications from HSE departments for the ‘Mirror Laboratories’ open project competition are open until May 20. One of the ‘mirror laboratories’ successfully operating today was created as a result of a similar competition in 2020 by economists from HSE University and Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU) to study institutes and preferences in economic behaviour. Alexis Belianin, Head of the HSE International Laboratory for Experimental and Behavioural Economics, talked about how peers from Moscow and Vladivostok collaborate.

‘Gaining Practical Knowledge and Learning to Do a Lot in a Short Time’—The Life of an HSE PhD Student
Milica Simonovic, from Belgrade, Serbia, is a doctoral student at the HSE University Faculty of Economic Sciences. She is currently working on her doctoral thesis on corporate governance and intellectual capital disclosure. We interviewed Milica to find out more about her thesis and her experience of the university’s application process for PhD students.

Statistics Explain Why Less-Competent People Tend to Overestimate Themselves
Why do people sometimes overestimate their knowledge—more often than not, those who are not well-versed in the subject at hand? Twenty years ago, two researchers studied this phenomenon and tried to explain it from a psychological point of view. This phenomenon is now known as the Dunning-Kruger effect after the names of the researchers. According to a report presented at a seminar of the HSE Department of Applied Economics, this effect has a purely statistical explanation.

The Cryptocurrency Market Works Like the Stock Market— Only Much Faster
After analysing the price fluctuations of almost 2,000 cryptocurrencies over seven years, Victoria Dobrynskaya, Associate Professor at the HSE University Faculty of Economic Sciences, found that there are no fundamental differences between their behaviour and that of conventional assets. Cryptocurrency follows the same principles, although its prices change much faster: processes that usually take years on traditional markets take only a month or so on the cryptocurrency market. An article on this research was reprinted by SSRN.

Model of Predator-Prey Relationship Helps Predict Spread of COVID-19
Researchers from the HSE Faculty of Economic Sciences have proposed a mathematical model that describes the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, taking into account the restrictions applied in different countries. The model will help governments make reasonable and timely decisions on introducing or lifting restrictions. The paper was published in Eurasian Economic Review.

Student Research Paper Competition 2021 Kicks Off at HSE University
The annual HSE Student Research Paper Competition (SRPC) helps young researchers try their hand in a real academic competition, where leading experts and professionals from HSE University assess their research papers. This year, participation will be open from September 1 to October 15.

Lockdown by Algorithm: A Proposed Model Calculates Optimal Restriction Levels
During the pandemic, countries have endeavoured to protect their citizens without hurting their economies with excessive restrictions. At the seminar ‘Living with Covid-19: Optimal Lockdown Policies’, Hubert Kempf, academic supervisor of HSE University’s International Laboratory for Macroeconomic Analysis, presented a mathematical model that can be used to calculate the optimal level of restrictions.

Researchers Find a Connection Between Trump’s Tweets and the Exchange Rate of the Rouble
Tweets about Russia by Donald Trump during his presidency caused short but noticeable depreciations of the rouble. Meanwhile, the introduction of new sanctions, upon which the president did not comment, had no such effect. This was the finding of a group of researchers, which included Elena Fedorova, Professor of the Faculty of Economic Sciences of HSE University. The group published their findings in in the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization.