Publications

The personal role of sub-national rulers is crucial for regional development in countries with weak institutions. This paper studies the impact of regional governors’ tenure in office and their local ties on procurement performance in Russia. To identify the causal effect, we construct instruments for governor’s tenure by exploiting the regional vote share of ruling party in past parliament elections. We find the evidence that governors who do not have pre-governing local ties in the region (outsiders) demonstrate predatory behaviour, compared to governors with local ties (insiders). Namely, governors-outsiders restrict the competition at awarding stage significantly more than governors-insiders. Moreover, for governors-outsiders this restriction becomes stronger with tenure in office, while governors-insiders do not demonstrate such negative tenure effect. We argue that this restriction of competition by governors-outsiders cannot be explained by the intention of better contracts execution: the delays in execution and the probability of contract termination either increase or keep stable with tenure for governors-outsiders and these outcomes decrease with tenure for governors-insiders.

This paper presents a model of strategic competition between universities that accounts for the existence of positive spillover effect from -education (peer effect). It was demonstrated that in the presence of peer effect strategic competition results in inefficient student allocation between the two universities (biased to the high-quality university) and excessive quality differentiation. The model is used to analyze the implications of government funding policies as well as admission and quality regulation. It was demonstrated that traditional schemes of institutional funding and students’ financial aid programs like tuition fee subsidy, quality investment subsidy, or total cost subsidy reduce social welfare. At the same time, an introduction of provision of tuition-free education for the best students combined with a per-student grant provided to the university improves both students’ and social welfare. It was also demonstrated that tight admission regulation is not socially desirable while the introduction of minimum quality standards makes society better off.

We study the consequences of misreporting in settings where ambiguity-averse investors face uncertainty about two aspects of the firm: productivity and reliability of the information system. We show that the joint presence of these two sources of uncertainty distort the firm’s investment choices in opposing ways, leading to over-investment by large firms (to signal productivity) and under-investment by small firms (to signal reliability). Our analysis suggests that uncertainty regarding the reliability of financial statements affects both the level of the market-to-book ratio and its association with firm size. In addition, we show that, under plausible circumstances, reductions in uncertainty can be detrimental to social welfare: lower information asymmetry about reliability always encourages more aggressive misreporting and boosts investment, thereby exacerbating the possible over-investment problem facing some firms.

The ageing population in Russia has led to a shift from distributive pay-as-you-go financed pension system into a multi-pillar one. In 2002, individuals were given the opportunity to form and manage their individual pension funds. Since then, reforms have continued. The purpose of this paper is to reveal how the views and attitudes of working-age Russians regarding retirement have changed over a period (2005-2018). Research was done using the survey data «Monitoring of the financial behavior of Russians (2009-2018)» (NRU-HSE), «Monitoring of financial activity of population (2005)» (ZIRCON) and Initiative Study of NAFI (2007). Despite the demographic, economic, and institutional changes that have taken place, individual pension strategies have not changed for the better, fewer Russians are confident in 2018 that they will have enough money for living after retirement, the number of those who expect to receive additional income has reduced, financial retirement strategies have not become common.

We consider a game in extensive form recurrently played by agents who are randomly drawn from large populations and matched. We assume that preferences over actions at any information set admit a smooth-ambiguity representation in the sense of Klibanoff, Marinacci, and Mukerji (Econometrica, 2005), which may induce dynamic inconsistencies. We take this into account in our analysis of self-confirming equilibrium (SCE) given players' feedback about the path of play. Battigalli, Cerreia-Vioglio, Maccheroni, and Marinacci (Amer. Econ. Rev., 2015) show that the set of SCE's of a simultaneous-move game with feedback expands as ambiguity aversion increases. We show by example that SCE in a sequential game is not equivalent to SCE applied to the strategic form of such game, and that the previous monotonicity result does not extend to general sequential games. Still, we provide sufficient conditions under which the monotonicity result holds for SCE.

The report presents the results of a global study of biomedical clusters. Its goal is to identify and analyse the most successful international practices of promoting biomedical clusters, in which the cooperation of universities, firms and clinics, combined with a developed infrastructure and public support measures led to a significant improvement in the quality of healthcare.

The edition summarises the positive effects of biomedical clusters, describes their global landscape and reveals the key success factors, which are then compared with the features of the Moscow International Medical Cluster activities.

The publication is of practical interest to government officials, entrepreneurs, researchers, clinicians, and other professionals involved in the development of biomedical clusters, and to anyone else interested in healthcare and cluster policies.

The purpose of this article is to look into new opportunities of using mobile devices for teaching English to ESP students and develop an understanding of possible ways of incorporating these ideas into a classroom at tertiary level. The research is based on prepared in advance questionnaire. Results of this study show that the majority of 1st year students would like to be taught using new technologies but the offered tasks, which can be done in mobile learning, are limited to online tests and learning vocabulary and speaking. A number of 1st-year students of the Institute of Foreign Languages of the Higher School of Economics (HSE), Russia are reluctant to any changes since they find the traditional way of teaching English more efficient. A few 4th-year students of Design school of the HSE regret not having been taught with mobile devices because they could make the learning process more convenient, faster and more interesting.

The article examines the problem of the ICO (Initial Coin Offering, from English — “initial offer of coins, initial placement of coins”). The information source is the ICO rating data of the return on investment in blockchain startups. The methodological base of the research is a situational comparative analysis of the ICO, DAOICO, IEO and STO and systematization of information. The author analyzes three new ICO models. The first one includes elements of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAO). Its aim is to minimize the difficulties and risks associated with the ICO. The second model (Initial Exchange Offering (IEO), from English — “primary exchange offer”) is designed to minimize risks, liquidity problems and a delay in listing tokens at the end of the token sale. The third model — the Security Token Offering (STO, from English — “offer of security token”) — was designed to support real assets and comply with the SEC requirements. These models are a new direction for small and medium enterprises and investors. The absence of any scientific work emphasizes the relevance and scientific novelty of the study. The article is a follow-up of the empirical work related to the success of the ICO, as well as the basis for its revision using the case study results.

Despite of the fact that the history of Initial Coin Offering (ICO) is short, new modification of it has already suggested. According to the ICORating , in the second half of 2018, the profitability of investments in blockchain startups decreased by 22%, and 58% of ICO projects announced in Q4 2018 were not able to raise more than 100,000 USD. Moreover, in Q4 2018 40% of projects with previously announced ICOs have already deleted their social network accounts and websites. The founder of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin (2015), who started the first ICO, proposed a new way of decentralized fundraising called DAICO in 2018. This new model will include elements of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAO), and its purpose will be to minimize the difficulties and risks associated with the ICO. At the same time, in 2018 another model of financing appeared called Initial Exchange Offering (IEO) in order to minimize risks, problems of liquidity and the postponement of the listing of the tokens at the end of tokensale step. More than 70 IEOs listed on ICObench with average rating of 3.6 and 42 IEOs have been ended and raised $266 million in total. Nevertheless, there three types of tokens 95% of ICO projects are utility-based token. This makes ICO comparable to crowfunding. In order to be more attractive for investors the focus on a new wave of ICO projects is on the security type of tokens. The security token is any cryptocurrency that pays dividends, profits, shares or interest or invests in any other asset that also generates profits. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) use the Howey Test and concludes the securities token are securities in contract to classical utility token of ICO projects. In order to back by real assets and follow the SEC's guidance on compliance, issuance, and trading new model is called Security Token Offering (STO) and differs from ICO. All three new models are a new focus for small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) and investors. The absence of any type of academic works emphasizes the relevance and scientific novelty of the forthcoming research. The contribution to the existing literature is the systematization of information and comparison analyses of ICO, DAOICO, IEO and STO by method of case study.

We analyze the convergence of opinions or beliefs in a general social network with non-Bayesian agents. We provide a new sufficient condition under which opinions converge to consensus and the condition is significantly more permissive than that of Lorenz (2005). This condition, which depends on properties of the network, requires agents to incorporate others’ opinions into their own posterior sufficiently often.

This is the first paper that evaluates the effects of a reform requiring Russian universities to make admission decisions based on the results of a national high-school exam. We show the reform led to a threefold increase in geographic mobility rates among high-school graduates from small cities and towns to start college. This is robust to different techniques, samples, and specifications. The reform was also accompanied by increases in students’ expectations to attend university, parental transfers, and educational expenditures. There is no evidence the reform affected parental labor supply, divorce, and employment outcomes of graduates who did not move.

The purpose of this book is to develop academic skills of writing an extended essay. The process of developing this skill consists of six steps: title analysis, writing an introduction, main part paragraph development and writing a conclusion. Two lessons are devoted to writing an abstract and a summary. The last step is compiling bibliography. During this course attention is given to ways of avoiding plagiarism and punctuation issues.

The book contains Appendix with sample essays written by ICEF and School of Design students (National Research University Higher School of Economics). It is meant for classroom work but can be used for self-study, too. 

 

Since 2013, Initial Coin Offerings (ICO) have allowed companies to attract financing with the help of cryptocurrencies. Statistics of ICO shows that the ICO market is increasing and demand for funds continues to grow with claims of over $ 15 billion raised in the first half of 2018. The increasing volumes of investment in ICO projects as an alternative method to venture capital or IPO are caused by, for example, the possibility of reselling the received tokens at a higher price after the launch of the project or obtaining the company’s services at lower prices. While the importance of the topic is growing, there is the absence of fundamental works emphasizing the determinants of an ICO’s success. The scientific novelty of the forthcoming research consists in the formation of the model evaluation of ICO success. Using econometric analysis based on data for 1392 projects, we show that the volatility of the main cryptocurrencies has a significant impact on the success of ICO. The constraints of the platform for Smart Contacts (ERC‑20) and dependence on the Ethereum volatility overcome all other factors. Our data contributes to existing literature and shows the insignificance of the sector of the project, almost all location region and fluctuation of influence of quality of the team. This result may be explained by the uncertainty of the investor about the project (weak signals), absence of the regulation and legal framework. This result is beneficial for owners of companies since it is an argument for decreasing costs for marketing.

The concept of Methodenstreits is used to analyse the relationship between behavioral and mainstream economics. A Methodenstreit is understood by the authors as a dispute between the more abstract and the less abstract canons of the economic science. It undergoes several necessary stages: discovery of a new research instrument, an exaggerated debate between the canons, and mutual enrichement after the debate. The article reviews the following Methodenstreits: empirical investigations of Hall, Hitch, and Lester vs neoclassical theory of the firm (the ‘full cost controversy’ and the ‘marginalist controversy’); Katona’s consumer research vs Keynesian macroeconomics; Simon’s bounded rationality approach vs neoclassical maximization; and experiments of Allais and others vs expected utility theory.

Empirical research conducted in 5 Russian local communities in 2011-2015 discovered asymmetric principal-agent relations between regional and municipal authorities in which regional authorities have all the necessary resources for effective control over the urban elites and interference in the local political process. However, despite the increasing centralization, the regional-local government relationships remain variable. The active presence or absence of the governor and his team in urban politics largely depends on personal relations between the heads of regional and municipal administrations, the resource base of the territory, the severity of conflicts and/or problems that threaten its stable development. Spectrum of relations between the regional and local elites varies from quite constructive and relatively conflict-free, to rather tense and open confrontation, while the interference of the regional authorities in the activities of the local government bodies differs from episodic to permanent.

We study a small open economy New Keynesian model calibrated to the Russian economy with a banking system that trades secured and unsecured debt. Firms endogenously default on their unsecured debt obligations over the business cycle. We examine the effectiveness of four alternative countercyclical policies that respond to the growth in unsecured credit in the economy. The lean-against-the-wind monetary policy is the most effective in simultaneously affecting the real economy and stabilizing the banking system in response to both oil price and total factor productivity shocks. The countercyclical deposit reserve requirement was found to play a stabilizing role following an oil shock, while the countercyclical capital adequacy requirement helped to stabilize the banking system after a total factor productivity shock.

This paper investigates on a theoretical level the underlying causes of recent trends in decision of firms to hire temporary and permanent labour when workers and firms meet through a frictional directed search technology. Temporary workers differ from permanent workers in that they have a lower bargaining weight but look for a permanent job while on the temporary job. The findings are that permanent arrangements are more prevalent the more productive the aggregate production function is, i.e. also in the less productive phases. More efficient matching has an inverse U shaped impact, it first increases the prevalence of temporary arrangements and then decreases it. Bargaining weights have an ambiguous impact.

At the beginning of a dynamic game, players may have exogenous theories about how the opponents will play. If these theories are commonly known, players will refine their first-order beliefs and challenge their own theories through strategic reasoning. I propose a new solution concept, Selective Rationalizability, which captures the following hypothesis: when the observed behavior is not compatible with the beliefs in rationality and in the theories of all orders, players keep the beliefs in rationality that are compatible with the observed behavior, and drop the incompatible beliefs in the theories. Thus, Selective Rationalizability captures Common Strong Belief in Rationality (Battigalli and Siniscalchi, 2002) and refines Extensive-Form Rationalizability (Pearce, 1984, Battigalli, 1996), whereas Strong-Δ-Rationalizability (Battigalli, 2003, Battigalli and Siniscalchi, 2003) captures the opposite epistemic priority choice. Selective Rationalizability is extended to encompass richer epistemic priority orderings among different theories of opponents' behavior. This allows to shed some new light on strategic stability (Kohlberg and Mertens, 1986).

Background. During the last decade, life calling has become an areas of dynamically developing research in psychology, management, and counseling. However, it has not been empirically investigated in Russia, despite Russia’s rich intellectual and spiritual tradition, and abundant research on related constructs, such as personal meaning.

Objective. The aim of the present study is an initial qualitative exploration of the concept of calling in Russian culture.

Design. We employed qualitative document analysis to examine openended responses from 104 college students regarding their definition of calling, and the actions they undertook to discern and implement that calling.

Results. We found that the students saw a calling as something more than a mere job; were intrinsically motivated to find and dedicate themselves to it; associated a calling with the use of their abilities; and at the same time expected it to make them more energized and successful without considerable effort. While some participants felt called to a specific domain, the majority indicated abstract other or self-oriented callings. Regarding the implementation of their calling, the participants fell into two groups: those who did something specific, such as study and practice, and those who did something vague, such as “everything” or “nothing”.

Conclusion. These results are largely in line with similar findings in other cultures. The results can be used in career guidance in educational institutions, as well as in private counseling. Specific recommendations for practice, as well as directions for future research, are explored.

Since 2013 Initial Coin Offerings (ICO) have allowed companies to attract financing with the help of cryptocurrencies. In August 2017, the total capitalization of the crypto currency market exceeded $150bln. From the 1st quarter of 2015 to November 2017, the volume of funds raised amounted to $3,78bln. Statistics of ICO shows that demand continues to grow with claims of over $15bln raised in the first half of 2018. The first quarter of 2019 ended with $902 million total raised funds and $8.4 million average raised funds. The increasing number of projects financed by ICO (4954 projects during 5 years) as an alternative method to venture capital (VC) or initial coin offering (IPO) is caused by several reasons: the possibility of reselling the received tokens at a higher price after the launch of the project or earlier; the possibility of obtaining the company's services at lower prices; the increased popularity of crypto currencies (e.g. Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc.); the expectation of high profitability; the high speed of transactions (including the speed of attracting initial investments) and anonymity. However, due to difficulties in regulation, the ICO market attracts smaller investments on average (average investments in ICO projects equal to $19 million in comparison with the average size of IPO - $207,2 million) and there exists more chance for manipulation in the market, which leads to the fact that the results relevant to the IPO market cannot be applied directly to ICO. Due to the fact that blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies are new tools in finance, and the data for research has just begun to appear, there is a limited number of academic papers in this area of studies. Moreover, they are devoted mainly to the description of the mechanisms of the ICO, the advantages and risks of ICO, the review of existing ICO and crypto exchanges, legislation. The absence of fundamental works emphasizes the relevance and scientific novelty of the forthcoming research.  The contribution to the existing literature is the identification of factors that affect the successful of ICO. Scientific novelty consists in the formation of the model evaluation of ICO success. Empirical results show that volatility of main cryptocurrencies has significant impact on the success of ICO. The constraints of the platform for Smart Contacts (ERC-20) and dependence on the Ethereum volatility overcome all other factors. Our data contributes with existence literature and shows the insignificance of sector of the project, almost all location region and fluctuation of influence of quality of team. This result may be explained by the uncertainty of the investor about the project (weak signals), absence of the regulation and legal framework. This result is beneficial for owners of companies since it is an argument for decreasing costs for marketing.