Research & Expertise news at HSE University

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, people around the world have faced an unprecedented crisis. The cataclysm has impacted Russia as well. Who will better deal the hardships—experienced baby boomers, Gen Xers who survived the 1990s, or Gen Yers who have had an easy life?

HSE experts have analyzed the position of Russian non-commodity sectors in global production and opportunities for their revitalization. The researchers believe that long-term sustainable growth of its non-commodity exports can be achieved by repositioning and including them in the global value chain at some more advanced stages than the supply of raw materials and semi-finished products.

In lockdowns, why do some people stay home, while others violate the quarantine rules and go out for picnics in the park? Behavioural economics may provide the answer to this question. Oksana Zinchenko, a Research Fellow of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, explains how we can predict people’s behaviour with game theory.

Due to timely price and time adjustments on the Russian labour market, the need for worker layoffs was much less than it could have been under other conditions. This is the finding of a study conducted by the Centre for Labour Market Studies and the Office for Expert Analysis at HSE University. At the same time, the study also shows that more than half of Russians surveyed reported that their earnings have decreased significantly.

Sweden is the only country of the European Union that has not taken strict measures against the coronavirus pandemic. The country’s COVID-19 death rate is growing, unemployment is close to record high levels and GDP could fall by 10%. But does this prove that Sweden’s strategy is ineffective? The HSE School of World Economy invited experts to assess its implications for Swedish society.

According to the findings of HSE researchers, up to one-quarter of school graduates in Moscow enrol in low-quality universities despite scoring highly on their Unified State Exam, the final school exam and a standard university admission mechanism in Russia. This academic mismatch limits their life opportunities and often stems from unequal starting conditions in the family and at school.

Alexander Efimov, a research fellow at the International Laboratory for Mirror Symmetry and Automorphic Forms of HSE University, has been awarded the European Mathematical Society’s prestigious Prize.

On May 21, the joint webinar series, ‘Education under COVID-19: Problems, Solutions, Perspectives, Research’ began with a session about the effects of school closures under the pandemic. Harry Anthony Patrinos of the World Bank presented the results of a model that he and a team of researchers developed in order to predict the extent to which the closures may reduce learning and lead to future losses in labor productivity and earnings for today’s students. The webinar was moderated by Isak Froumin (Head of the HSE Institute of Education), while Professors Tommaso Agasisti (School of Management, Politecnico di Milano) and Sergey Kosaretsky (Director, HSE Centre of General and Extracurricular Education) served as discussants.