Nobel Laureate Professor Eric Maskin Visits Perm
On December 14 to 16, the capital of Permsky Krai hosted a visit by Professor Eric Maskin, Nobel laureate in Economics.
On December 14 to 16, the capital of Permsky Krai hosted a visit by Professor Eric Maskin, Nobel laureate in Economics.
On December 14, the honorary guest had a meeting with the Governor of Permky Krai Viktor Basargin. During the meeting, Professor Maskin shared his vision of the development of education and science in a global context and in relation to Russia. Also the Chairman of the International Advisory Committee briefly spoke about the prospects for development of the Higher School of Economics and the Perm campus, in particular. Prof. Maskin said that he had had long-term relationships with the Higher School of Economics. He had been giving lectures, mostly in Moscow. He truly believed that development of the HSE was a step forward to development of Russia’s economy as leading economists had been students of the University. Viktor Basargin proposed to Professor Eric Maskin that they jointly with Perm’ universities establish a scientific school in Perm.
In the evening of December 14, the world famous scientist, Prof. Maskin gave a public lecture «Designing economic instruments: how to meet social objectives». The lecture attracted representatives of the academic community, students of Perm universities, deputies of the Permsky Krai Legislative Assembly, members of the Perm City Duma, representatives of the Krai and City Administration, entrepreneurs, and members of the Perm Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Professor Maskin is one of a rare group of scientists performing not only in-depth research, but who can also provide an easy explanation of his research results to the audience, which he successfully demonstrated during the lecture. He explained some theoretical basics of mechanisms implementation by providing some specific examples. The lecture aroused the most vivid interest, with lots of questions asked by the listeners.
Answering a question from the audience, whether it was possible to ensure that economic crisis would not exist at all, Prof. Maskin said that he did not think it was possible, and that that should be done. To do so, one should strongly regulate the market, which would lead to limitation of economic growth.
Also a question was asked on how Prof. Maskin assessed his Russian colleagues’ achievements. He said that there were branches in which Russian scientists had won strong international recognition, particularly, in physics. As for Economics, Russia could demonstrate much more modest success, which was due to the fact that it had been taken seriously only of late. Perhaps only in early 1990s, the economy took its rightful place in the Russian academic landscape, and a national economic school began to take shape. Anyway, now many more of Russian economists are engaged in research. Hence, recognition will be forthcoming.
During his visit, the Nobel laureate took part in a roundtable conference "What is an academic career?” with the students of HSE – Perm, and met with the faculty members of the university.
For reference
Eric Stark Maskin is 62. He received the 2007 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics (with L. Hurwicz and R. Myerson) for laying the foundations of mechanism design theory. He is Adams University Professor at Harvard University and Professor at Princeton University. He is also Chief Research Fellow at theInternational Laboratory of Decision Choice and Analysis and Chairman of the International Advisory Committee of the Higher School of Economics. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the European Economic Association,a member of the Econometric Society, and a corresponding member of the British Academy.