Publications

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 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. 

 

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.

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.

Parking occupancy sensors are devices that assist search of vacant parking. The interplay between two government policies, installation of sensors and pricing parking, is studied. When parking is congested and the uniform price is optimal, installation of sensors raises the price, increases turnover of parking. If price discrimination is considered, sensored parking should be cheaper than non-sensored. To achieve optimal search of vacant parking, it is sufficient to equip only a fraction of parking with sensors. Underpriced parking may dampen the sensor installation incentive, relative to the incentive to build extra parking. Nevertheless, in absolute terms the sensor installation incentive is substantial even with free parking.

In the future world of self-driving vehicles, intersections will be managed by computers that send individual commands to each passing vehicle. This paper proposes to make traffic priority contingent on self-reported value of time of vehicle occupants. A model of two merging roads with stochastic traffic is developed. Algorithms for calculation of optimal exit sequences, accounting for time value heterogeneity, are characterized. Welfare costs of limited planning horizon are assessed. Incentive compatible scheme of payment for priority is calculated. The winners and losers of the proposed mechanism are described. Optimality of traffic volume and composition under optimal exit regulation is established.

The manual was compiled in accordance with the Program of the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, designed for students under the Master's program. The manual contains a set of teaching materials with basic concepts, sample tasks, tests, practical situations for conducting seminars, as well as for independent work of students. For students, graduate students and teachers of economic universities and faculties, all interested in topical issues of institutional science.

The monograph is written based on materials held in September 2017. at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation of the conference dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the publication of the first volume of Capital by Karl Marx. The monograph analyzes the methodology of Capital, its place in the history of economic thought and current issues through the prism of time. Particular attention is paid to the development of the ideas of "Capital" in the postmodern era. Special sections are devoted to the spread of Marxist ideas in Russia and the problems of modernizing Russia in the light of the ideas of Capital.

For students, graduate students and teachers of economic universities and faculties, all interested in current issues of modern economics.

The textbook in 2 parts 

The textbook contains a course of macroeconomic theory of introductory and intermediate levels and includes a standard set of topics studied in the baccalaureate of economic universities. In an understandable way it expounds the fundamentals of macroeconomic theory and macroeconomic policy: presents the definitions of the basic concepts and terms; outlines the key formulas; provides the thorough explanation and interpretation of macroeconomic relations and of the mechanisms of macroeconomic processes. The textbook gives the comprehensive analysis of the most important macroeconomic models, including dynamic ones, which apparatus is provided in the form accessible to readers with different levels of mathematical background. The analysis of various options for macroeconomic policy includes a detailed intuitive description of the mechanisms and consequences of each policy in the closed and in the open economies, and for different time periods: short-run, medium-run and long-run. For clarity and visibility, the theoretical statements are illustrated by logical chains, diagrams, tables, numerous graphs and statistical data, most of which relate to the Russian economy. The theory is accompanied by numerical problems with solutions, explanations and comments that not only gives insight of what formulas and how are to be used for solving typical tasks, but also contributes to deeper understanding of the theoretical material.

The textbook consists of two parts. Part I includes eight chapters. Chapters 1 and 2 have an overview character; they provide an idea about the subject and the methods of macroeconomic analysis and the key macroeconomic variables. Chapters 3–8 are devoted to the theory of aggregate demand; they deal with the models of the goods and money markets and describe the consequences of macroeconomic policy in the closed economy in the short run.

Part II included nine chapters. Chapter 9 addresses the labor market in order to derive aggregate supply. Chapter 10 describes the model of aggregate demand and aggregate supply and analyzes the consequences of exogenous shocks in the short run and in the medium run. Chapters 11–13 focus on the problems of macroeconomic instability — unemployment and inflation. Chapter 14 considers the factors and models of the long-run economic growth. Chapters 15–17 contain the theory of the open economy and examine the implications of the stabilization policies in the open economy.

This book is intended for undergraduate students of economic faculties; students of non-economic specialties, studying macroeconomics; macroeconomic theory teachers; applicants of master's programs of economic universities; attendees of professional retraining courses and further training faculties, as well as for all who are interested in macroeconomic theory and macroeconomic policy.  

This monograph is devoted to the institutional analysis of informal employment in the modern world. The development of views on the institute of informal employment is considered, global trends in the development of the shadow economy at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries are shown. The advantage of the monograph is a detailed analysis of Russian practice. The author studies the sources of informal employment in modern Russia, reveals the content and main forms, as well as development prospects in our country. The authors show that the reduction in transaction costs is the main direction of reducing informal employment in Russia. In the design of the book used photos of the authors. Designed for teachers of economic universities and faculties, graduate students and undergraduates, as well as all interested in topical issues of modern economics.

The study verifies the compliance of sectorial specialization of Russian regions and the priorities of regional development presented in the form of cluster initiatives. The case of cluster policy shows that sectorial specialization of Russian regions, which was identified statistically, is often ignored when applying public support measures. The paper reports on the results of comparative analysis of the method for determining regions’ specialization industries used in the paper with the list of “economic specializations of Russian regions” mentioned in the “Strategy for the spatial development of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2025”. The paper suggests recommendations that ensure the multi-level coordination of policymakers’ actions and concentration of resources on the justified priorities of regional development.

This paper studies the organisational structure of contracting out transportation operations to a vertical partnership between local authorities and a vertically integrated monopoly. Pricing decisions are delegated to the partnership operating in the downstream market as a socially concerned firm that maximises a weighted sum of social welfare and profits. The price for essential input required to produce each unit of the transportation service is determined by the monopoly in the upstream market for rolling stock and crew leasing. A forward ownership interest in the vertical partnership held by the monopoly yields a partial rebate of the downstream margin. In turn, the local authorities can extract the upstream monopoly rent via a franchise fee which can be determined ex post. Our theoretical model predicts that local authorities with a relatively high share in the partnership should decrease the net transfer from the budget by increasing the franchise fees if the upstream profit margins are high. The empirical evidence for the impact of the ownership structure on contractual regime is found in the panel data for 25 suburban passenger companies in Russia in 2011-2015, where partial cost recovery and inappropriate compensation plays the role of pseudo-franchising contracts

We investigate the consequences of excessive international debt overhang as they relate to both debtor and creditor countries. In particular, we assess the impact of monetary policy on financial stability and how it can be used to smooth borrowers, as well as creditors, consumption over the business cycle. Based on [Goodhart, Peiris, Tsomocos, 2018], we establish that an independent countercyclical monetary policy, that contracts liquidity whenever debt grows whereas it expands it when default rises, reduces volatility of consumption. In effect, monetary policy provides an extra degree of freedom to the policymaker. We implement our approach to the Czech and Eurozone area economies during the 1990s. In our model, we introduce endogenous default ά la [Shubik, Wilson, 1977], whereby debtors incur a welfare cost in renegotiating their contractual debt obligations that is commensurate to the level of default. However, this cost depends explicitly on the business cycle and it should be countercyclical. Hence, contractionary monetary policy reduces the volume of trade and efficiency, thus increasing default. This occurs as the default cost increases the associated default accelerator channel engenders higher default rates. On the other hand, lower interest rates increase trade efficiency and, consequently, reduce the amplitude of the business cycle and benefit financial stability. In sum, the appropriate design of monetary policy complements financial stability policy. The modeling of endogenous default allows us to study the interaction of monetary and macroprudential policy.

Most discussions of the Greek debt overhang have focussed on the implications for Greece. We show that when additional funds released to the debtor (Greece), via debt restructuring, are used efficiently in pursuit of a practicable business plan, then both debtor and creditor can benefit. We examine a dynamic two country model calibrated to Greek and German economies and support two-steady states, one with endogenous default and one without, depending on creditors expectations. In the default steady state, debt forgiveness lowers the volatility of both German and Greek consumption whereas demanding higher recovery rates has the opposite effect.

Innovation infrastructure plays a crucial role in the establishment of links among knowledge producers, intermediaries, and exploiters to deal with socio-economic challenges. Traditionally, the representatives of the public sector, business and academia have been considered as the key stakeholders; however today there is a shift of interest towards end users or consumers of products and services. Users, especially citizens, are able to bring new insights into their experience while taking part in the testing and validation of innovative products and/or services. Hence, it is essential to decide, which forms of innovation infrastructure units enable the successful involvement of users in the design and innovation process. Since mid-2000, the European Union has successfully introduced a platform for testing and experimentation based on the users’ engagement – a living laboratory. The study investigates the features of living labs, including their possible business applications, and searching for the living labs’ analogous among the existing forms of innovation infrastructure units in Russia. Business Model Canvas and comparative analysis are employed to do the research. Taken together, our results support the idea that a living lab is a very special form of innovation infrastructure unit, since it brings a product, technology, or service closer to the market, based on the insights from the end users’ engagement in testing and experimentation.