As the economy improves and anti-corruption legislation develops, it’s highly likely that the market corruption will transform into a network one. Network corruption works through ties between officials and businesspeople, and the currency here is not money, but services. Maria Kravtsova studied various forms of corruption in her paper ‘A Friend in Court or a Penny in the Purse? Reasons for Market and Network Corruption’

Cultivating guilt, the use of bonuses and penalties, and psychological pressure on employees are not the best ways to improve a company’s efficiency. According to a HSE Laboratory of Positive Psychology study of work motivations, professionals will be most efficient if they have an intrinsic motivation to work, which is related not to earnings, but instead, to an interest in what they do

Social networks are one of the reasons for the growing demand for professional photography. Social networks allow anyone to create their public image in a virtual reality. Anastiasia Evstratova has been studying the mechanisms of demand on the photo market, as well as the functions of photography for photographers and their clients

A number of fairly strong independent economic think tanks have emerged in Russia, but their further development depends on whether they can maintain their independence and provide good analysis while responding to the new challenges posed by changes in demand for their services.These are the findings of a collaborative ARETT-HSE study

Muscovites are more likely to suffer from loneliness than people in smaller Russian cities. At the same time, Moscow is a city of individualists, and many people here choose solitude in order to focus on their career and personal development. A study by Christopher Swader looks at some of the causes and characteristics of urban loneliness

Natural disasters and the election results have triggered rapid development of informal social activity in Russia. Experts revealed some new characteristics of Russian civil society in their research ‘Russian Neo-Political Activism: Sketching a Portrait of a Hero’

Russia is a country with one of the highest levels of anomie – breakdown in social norms. It arises from the rapid economic growth combined with a weak system of social controls that Russia has experienced in recent years, according to research by Christopher Swader and Leonid Kosals

Authoritarianism has a future in Russia. In the next two decades, the 1980s generation will start to join the higher echelons of Russian society. But the situation is such that the change of generation of the elites will have little effect on the transformation of the political regime. Or so the authors of research on “The Russian elite in 2020” have concluded

For a long time, retail in Russia developed without interference from government regulators, but the situation has changed dramatically in recent years. The state is now actively trying to control this sphere, but the effectiveness of such attempts is questionable, asserts Vadim Radaev in his recent paper.

The Kremlin wants to change its relations with the business elites. While one part of the ‘government vertical’ hopes to maintain the status-quo of the mid-2000s, another one trying to broaden the social base of government to include medium-sized businesses. But if the bureaucrats want to win support and improve the investment climate in Russia, representatives of other elites need to be drawn into the discussion

Only 20% of residents in Qatar are native citizens of the country. The rest are migrant workers. Cheap workers come from the East, more expensive ones from the West. Trevor Johnston has studied the way this authoritarian regime uses deliberate segregation in order to maintain civil peace during this mass influx of migrant workers engaged in the economy of the country

The fact – well known to political consultants – that people tend to go along with the crowd can be explained by a brain mechanism which has helped our survival as a species. Every time we differ from others, our brain responds by triggering an 'error signal', causing us to change our opinion in favour of the majority, reveals a study by Vasily Klucharev