Relationships within Russian families are being transformed. While most people in the country still think that mutual support between the different generations within a family are necessary, these traditions of ‘family service’ are receding into the past. Russia is becoming more oriented to Western cultural values, including the priority of individual interests, reported Cecile Lefevre, Irina Korchagina and Lidya Prokofieva at the HSE XV April International Academic Conference on Economic and Social Development

A company that makes more effort to encourage initiative among its employees, supports their professional growth, and cares for their well-being will find it easier to hang on to motivated workers and improve the chances of company success. At the HSE XV April International Conference Alla Kupreychenko showed how corporate social responsibility predisposes an organisation to good results

The excessive openness, naivety and careless behaviour of children and teenagers in social networks is no more than a myth, Olga Gurkina and Elena Novikova have concluded  in their study which was presented at the 15th April International Academic Conference on Economic and Social Development. Teenagers communicate online mostly with friends, not strangers, and rarely openly express their opinions. They prefer indirect expression, such as likes and reposts rather than comments, changes of status and photos

The younger a lawyer is the more cynical his attitude towards his profession. In legal circles a readiness to sacrifice ethical and moral standards for financial gain is not uncommon. A report by the HSE Institute for Industrial and Market Studies (IIMS) suggests that change requires active engagement from lawyers’ associations and regular research investigations of the legal community

To ensure high rates of economic growth, countries should adopt effective policies for human capital accumulation and promote an institutional environment for it to be translated into technological innovation, said Isaac Ehrlich, Distinguished Professor of Economics at the State University of New York at Buffalo and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Human Capital, addressing the HSE's XV April XV Conference

The income and satisfaction freelancers get from their work depends largely on their professional self-worth. Education and experience are rewarded financially but these don’t determine an individual’s sense of job satisfaction. Researchers Denis Strebkov and Andrey Shevchuk presented these findings in a paper at the HSE XV April International Conference on Economic and Social Development – ‘How does Human Capital Influence the Income and Job Satisfaction of Self-employed Professionals?’

A crisis of trust in Russian society keeps people from enjoying their lives to the full, said Anna Mironova, Research Intern of the HSE’s International Laboratory of Socio-Cultural Research and postgraduate student at the HSE Department of Demography in her presentation at the XV April International Conference

Harvard professor Richard Pipes, one of the most renowned Western experts in Russian history, explained why freedom in Russia is impossible without a developed private property system, in his speech at the 15th April International Academic Conference on Economic and Social Development

Most Russian banks do not skimp on risk management costs. The only exception are aggressive retail lenders too fixated on cost-cutting, said Mikhail Mamonov at the HSE's XV April Conference

Once out of secondary school, two thirds of young people leave their home villages and small towns never to come back. Russia's 'backwoods' are increasingly depopulated and rapidly ageing, notes Ilya Kashnitsky in his paper 'A Cohort Study of Intraregional Migration of Russian Youth' presented at the HSE's XV April Conference

Russians are failing to cope with debt; small town economies are lagging behind; the Russian market is not favourable for a defined-contribution pension system, and Russian statistics are unsuitable for analysis – these were the top 15 most interesting papers from the HSE's XV April Conference, according to Opec.ru

The ability to provide enough food for yourself, and have a surfeit to sell for export, is becoming a way for states to influence world politics and the economy, says Alina Savelyeva, assistant to the Dean at the HSE Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs. In the lecture she delivered at the HSE’s XV April International Conference 'The role of food potential in modern international politics', Savelyeva considers the mechanisms of how food can be a weapon