The SU-HSE 10th International Conference on Problems of Development of the Economy and the Society

The first conference of this cycle was held in Moscow on April 5-6, 2000, and such conferences have been regularly held since then in early April. Prof. Ye. Yasin, the head of Research of the SU-HSE, has been an irreplaceable chairman of its organizational Committee.

This year, plenary sessions focused on major issues of the conference, that is, “Productivity and Human Factor” and “The Global Financial Crisis and Russia’s Role in Its Overcoming”. Keynote presentations were delivered by Prof. Eric Maskin, the 2007 Nobel laureate in economics, Lawrence Harrison, an acclaimed researcher into problems of development of culture and civilizations, as well as AnnaLee Saxenian, George Tsebelis, Robert Kauffman, and other internationally renown researchers and experts.

The list of speakers at the plenary sessions also included Mr. I. Shuvalov, the First Deputy Chairman of the RF Government, Prof. E. Nabiullina, the RF Minister of Economic Development, Ms. T. Golikova, the RF Minister of Healthcare and Social Development, prof. Ye. Yasin, the Head of Research of SU-HSE, Prof. Ya. Kuzminov, Rector of the SU-HSE, Mr. A. Shokhin, President of the RUIE, Mr. A. Kudrin, Deputy Chairman of the RF Government and the RF Minister of Finance, prof. A. Ulyukaev, the First Deputy Chairman of the central Bank of Russia, Mr. A. Dvorkovich, aide to the RF President, Mr. G. Gref, Chairman of the Board and President of Sberbank of RF, representatives of the IMF, IBRD, EBRD, among others.

Mr. A. Knobel, Research Fellow of the IET’s Department for Sectoral Markets and Infrastructure, contributed to the Conference with a presentation entitled “Vertical integration, technological interlacing of production, opportunistic behavior and economic growth”. Mr. Knobel highlighted on his research into determinants of vertical integration and its impact on economic growth and maintained that whereas vertically integrated corporations are better at imitation of technologies, while disintegrated ones are better at innovation, vertical integration has a positive effect on early stages of development and a negative one – at subsequent stages of development.

Prof. S. Drobyshevsky, head of the IET’s Department for macroeconomics and Finance, took part in a discussion on the analysis of the crisis development, while E. Shkrebela, the Senior Research Fellow contributed to a session on tax policy.