About the Laboratory

Laboratory for Wealth Measurement was founded in September 2019. The Laboratory is part of the HSE University’s Faculty of Economics Sciences. Professor Alexandr Surinov heads the Laboratory.

There is irrefutable evidence of difference in price levels for similar goods and services between regions of Russia. Accounting for territorial heterogeneity in measuring regional social welfare contributes in refinement of inequality indicators for the whole country. Therefore, some policymakers’ decisions in this direction can be revised.

Besides that, real needs of population in different regions differ significantly, so there is a problem of choosing appropriate consumer basket to make correct comparisons.

Current approach to inter-regional comparisons of cost indicators applied by researchers and Federal State Statistic Service seems rather restricted.

World practice to resolve cross-country incompatibility of cost indicators is based on purchasing power parity (PPP). Our laboratory suggests similar approach on subnational level.

Laboratory aim is theoretical research, developing measuring methodology, regular calculations and results representation.

Laboratory involves students of the Faculty of Economics Sciences as interns in conducting research. Research interns gain theoretical knowledge and acquire skills of processing large disaggregated data, including microdata from observations of households, weighting algorithms to obtain more reliable distribution parameter estimates. Students represent their results at regular seminars and participate in conferences.