Minimum Monthly Wage (MMW) is a bad institution for fighting poverty and inequality. One of the reasons for this is Russia’s high heterogeneity. Raising MMW often leads to the death of companies and a growing shadow labour market, Alexey Oshchepkov concludes this in his study ‘Minimum Wage’s Influence on the Labour Market in Russia’

The structure of Russians’ income sources has changed. Pensioners are working more than before, while middle-aged Russians are working more and relying less on welfare; Russians are less frequently receiving child-related benefits. Farming has become less important for residents in rural areas. Sergey Vasin and Vladimir Kozlov presented a map of Russians’ income sources in the HSE online magazine Demoscope Weekly

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 informal labour market is growing in Russia. An increasing number of people are moving to the informal economy because they do not trust government institutions and do not receive the public benefits they are entitled to as taxpayers. 'Shadowed from Regulation: Informality in the Russian Labor Markets, Its Dynamics, Extent, and Consequences' is a paper by Vladimir Gimpelson

The importance of employment as a key source of income has been growing in Russia. A better socio-economic situation has caused to go down share of social benefits and private farming in household incomes

Management researcher Arie Y. Lewin's lecture on multinational companies adjusting to the local mentality in the entry into new markets

There is no universal cure for global economy. Each country’s economy needs specific tools for recovery. Salvatore Rossi, Deputy Director General of the Bank of Italy, spoke at the HSE Banking Institute

The country needs a new model of development, but this requires serious institutional changes. Officials are not interested in this, although the current policy of living ‘beyond the country’s means’ threatens to bring about serious social protest. These were the conclusions of the recent roundtable on ‘Scenarios of Russian economic development up to 2030’ at the HSE April Conference

Compared with large companies, small and medium-sized businesses in Russia find it easier to avoid complying with the country’s strict labor legislation because they are able to skirt its regulations. Meanwhile, large companies, which ensure they abide by the law, offset their extra costs by paying lower wages. Here are some findings from “Employment Legislation as a Factor of Employer Behaviour”, a research paper by Olga Mironenko

Official statistics fail to capture – in fact, they simply ignore – the development of Russia’s high-tech industry. This distorts macroeconomic indicators and negatively impacts the quality of the government's decisions. Vladimir Bessonov has authored the report: “In Search of Information and Communication Technologies: The Quirks of Russian Statistics and Economic Measurements”