Research & Expertise – News

The results of the competition for the best academic and popular science papers in Russian by HSE staff members have been announced. This competition is a new one, organized by the university to celebrate the Year of Science and Technology. 257 applications were submitted, with 35 winners announced in the academic category and 30 in the popular science one. The winners were announced on Alexander Pushkin’s birthday. The organizers plan to make the competition annual, potentially opening it up for all Russian and international researchers writing papers and involved in science communication in Russian.

In the more than 10 years since it was established, the HSE International Centre of Decision Choice and Analysis has travelled a long way from a laboratory to an academic centre of gravity for globally renowned scholars.Fuad Aleskerov, Professor in the HSE Faculty of Economic Sciences and Director of the HSE International Centre of Decision Choice and Analysis, spoke about the evolution of the centre’s team, its research activity, and solving Arctic dilemmas through the use of mathematical models.

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.  

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.

On average, women in Russia earn 30-35% less than men. According to this indicator, Russia is ahead of many developed countries. The difference in earnings is primarily associated with the uneven distribution of men and women in different industries and professions, but economists cannot explain a significant portion of the discrepancy. Aleksey Oshchepkov, Assistant Professor of the Faculty of Economic Sciences at HSE University, came to these conclusions after analyzing research materials and survey data. The results are published in a chapter of the volume, Gendering Post-Soviet Space, recently published by Springer.

Economics undergraduate program junior student Kira Silvestrovich's research paper won 3rd prize in Student research papers competition 2020. Here we publish paper synopsis

The annual awards ceremony of the Student Research Paper Competition (NIRS) was held on February 8, Russian Science Day. This year, 165 people received awards, including not only HSE students but also contestants from Saint Petersburg State University, Moscow State University, Far Eastern Federal University, Mount Holyoke College (USA), and other universities. Another 160 participants became laureates of the competition, with 1,924 papers submitted in total.

On January 14, at the 2021 Gaidar Forum, which was held at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), HSE University Rector Yaroslav Kuzminov and leaders of three other institutions signed an agreement to establish the Human Capital Multidisciplinary Research Center (HCMRC). The other co-signers were RANEPA Rector Vladimir Mau, MGIMO University Rector Anatoly Torkunov, and Dmitry Funk, Director of the N.N. Miklukho-Maclay Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The Center will focus on that key areas of human capital studies that are of current global importance.

Those who consider themselves healthy will be more willing to comply with COVID restrictions if they believe, according to their own estimations, that the expected losses from the disease will be significant, suggest researchers of the Faculty of Economic Sciences at HSE University.

Aleksei Smirnov, Assistant Professor, HSE University Faculty of Economic Sciences, and Egor Starkov, Assistant Professor, University of Copenhagen, have constructed a mathematical model that explains why it is advantageous for sellers not to delete negative reviews of their products. A study detailing this conclusion has been accepted for publication in The American Economic Journal: Microeconomics.