HSE Perm’s iCare: International Conference on Applied Research in Economics was “a useful experience”
The Perm campus of the Higher School of Economics has held a successful International Conference for Research in Economics “iCare”.
The Perm campus of the Higher School of Economics has held a successful International Conference for Research in Economics “iCare”.
The conference started with a welcome and introduction from HSE-Perm Director Galina Volodina, Professor Dmitri Vinogradov, University of Essex, and HSE-Perm Deputy Director Dmitriy Potapov. The speakers stressed the importance of this high profile event for the Perm campus and their confidence that it would provide a platform for regular research and scientific discussion in applied economics and empirical corporate finance.
Each day of the conference included keynote lectures and section sessions. The speakers demonstrated that a research economist these days is not just an observer, but deals with real questions about how to improve peoples’ lives.
The first day of the conference began with a keynote lecture by Professor Michael Waterson of the University of Warwick (UK). He talked about major developments in using empirical methods to analyse the economics of industrial markets. In the context of his own work, Professor Waterson pointed out that contemporary empirical methods were in some cases a kind of combination of science and art, and empirical advances should be made towards increasing the scientific side of the approach. The issues brought up during the lecture elicited a keen response from the audience and gave rise to a lively debate. The debate carried on into a brief coffee-break to allow the participants to enjoy the discussion before two parallel sections began their work.
The first section was chaired by Dr. Angel Barajas, Associate Professor at the University of Vigo (Spain). It was on issues related to credit default prediction in financing micro enterprises and on what are the determining factors in choosing government-insured mortgages in Russia. There were presentations describing empirical research based on data gathered in India and Russia. The authors explained their methodology and input in the subject areas, and invited the participants to discuss the results.
Sergey Izmalkov, Professor of the New Economics School, chaired the second section. This section gave rise to a discussion about government regulation of various markets, the gas market in Spain, in particular. The participants discussed market intervention mechanisms, their effectiveness and impact on the economic activity of market agents.
The focus of the second day of the conference was how various markets operate and research into the way agents’ behavior strategies can affect them. Doctor Sara Fisher Ellison, Senior Lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA), delivered a keynote lecture on competition issues among companies which trade online. She is one of the leading researchers investigating demand on commodity markets, effectiveness of e-commerce strategies and Internet technologies. Doctor Ellison presented the results of an empirical study of a particular market which showed that ranking and position on internet search engines are important factors, determining pricing in the modern economy.
Doctor Dmitri Vinogradov, University of Essex (UK) chaired a discussion on the importance of choosing the right investment strategy in the current climate as well as the significance of intellectual resources when creating costs. Participants presented their research findings which, using quantitative methods, proved the hypothesis that IC investment had a positive impact on the performance of a company – from brand development and professional growth of staff to participation in business associations. This kind of investment is especially important in periods of economic instability.
Section 2b chaired by Professor Michael Waterson was devoted to socio-economic modeling, from choosing a school in Washington, D.C. to the size of territories in the Russian regions as a factor for their economic growth.
In the second half of the day, the conference participants addressed the performance of financial markets. In his keynote speech, Doctor Yuri Tserlukevich of Arizona State University demonstrated a model he had developed to explain anomalies relating to book-to-market costs or income norms which occur periodically on the markets.
Doctor Tserlukevich and Doctor Ellison chaired Section 3a and Section 3b accordingly. The sections continued the theme of modeling various scenarios in different markets and estimating the associated impacts. Doctor Dmitry Vinogradov talked about an experiment on individual decision making, while Philip Ushchev (HSE – St. Petersburg) provided a detailed description of a model for competition between shopping centres with different organizational forms, the optimal shopping mall size, and location.
The day culminated in a gala-dinner where the participants shared their impressions of the conference so far in a relaxed atmosphere and discussed opportunities for further cooperation.
The last day of the conference started off with two parallel sections chaired by Professor William Megginson, University of Oklahoma, USA, and Professor Grigory Kosenok, New Economic School, Russia. Section 4a was a discussion on the need for government regulation of the market and that was followed by an empirical analysis of Russia’s senior management labor market from late 1999 until 2009. The analysis described a typical top manager in Russia and showed that there has been an increase in demand for that specific kind of human capital whereas the general demand for labour had decreased.
The participants of Section 4b presented interesting papers, one of which described a study identifying competitive advantages for production and trade in a country like Ecuador (Climate Smart Goods (CSG)). The other paper examined the possibility of predicting changes on the stock market by conducting an analysis of Twitter posts. The session generated much interest, ending with a lively debate.
Professor William Megginson, University of Oklahoma, USA, gave the concluding keynote speech. He highlighted the results of research into the benefits of reputation in the context of equity underwriting, using some US investment banks for examples.
The conference ended with a roundtable meeting where the section chairs and members of the Programme Committee summed up, given the key question voiced on the first conference day – “How can economists and economics as a whole contribute to the prosperity of an individual economic agent and to the economy in general?”
All the participants emphasised that the conference was well-organized and the issues discussed at the conference were really important from the point of view of contemporary economics and finance. Special thanks should be given to the student volunteers who helped organize and run the event. Professor Michael Waterson said the event was of a high standard: “The conference has gathered a group of independent thinkers and the papers presented are really interesting. I believe that I’ve had a useful experience”.