The area of my research interests is best described as applied economics of uncertainty and asymmetric information - with applications to macroeconomics, monetary and financial economics, and public sector.
Decisions in uncertainty (ambiguity)
"Lowest-Unmatched Price Auctions" (with J. Eichberger), International Journal of Industrial Organization, 2015, Vol. 43, pp. 1-17 (lead paper) - here we show, based on field data from real games, that people make choices close to Nash equilibrium even in highly complex games with no explicit solution
“Non-monetary incentives in online experiments”, Economics Letters, 2013, (with E. Shadrina), Vol. 119, pp. 306-310 - this paper shows that the results from the two-urn Ellsberg experiment obtained in unincentivized online and incentivized lab settings are similar to each other, when experimenters control for intrinsic motivation of subjects
“Destructive Effects of Constructive Ambiguity in Risky Times”, Journal of International Money and Finance, 2012, Vol. 31, pp. 1459-1481- a theoretical paper where ambiguity arises despite symmetric information of players (bankers and depositors), through multiplicity of optima for the regulator.
“Signaling Probabilities in Ambiguity” (with Y. Makhlouf) – under review - in a series of lab and online experiments we show that even irrelevant signals matter for choices in ambiguity but responses to them are highly heterogeneous
“Weighting Probabilities in Ambiguity” – this paper is currently being revised, it derives a weighting function for second-order probabilities by comparing weights assigned by ambiguity-neutral and ambiguity-averse subjects, and tracks responses of this weighting function to signals: for probabilistic signals the weighting functions becomes close to linear (this is quite surprising as probabilistic signals do not fully resolve ambiguity, so in effect it does not take much to make people ambiguity-neutral!)
“What You See is What You Bet” (with A. Izah and C. Watkins) – this paper is currently being revised, it presents an experiment in which ambiguity and risk attitudes are affected by the type of questions (investment framing) and by screen colours (red-on-black versus black-on-white) - again, just by changing the colour one can affect ambiguity attitudes!
"Manipulating uncertainty attitudes through screen colors" (with A. Izah and C. Watkins) - the paper is being revised, we extend here the analysis from the above to compare the impact of screen colors with that of stress (related to elevated cortisol levels) and differences in gender (sex hormones) with good evidence in favour of cortisol and against sex hormones as mediators of observed effects.
Finance and Macroeconomics
"Child mortality, commodity price volatility and the resource curse" (with Y. Makhlouf and N. Kellard) – Social Science and Medicine, 2017, Vol. 178, 144-156 - we show that exogenous shocks represented by the volatility of commodity terms of trade affect infant mortality rates but democracies are able to better cope with this than autocracies. An important part of this paper is our theoretical elaboration of the issue why households may end up being unprepared to exogenous shocks (linked to my research in decisions in uncertainty) and how good institutions help avoid negative consequences of this.
“Two Faces of Financial Systems: markets stimulate growth, banks smooth exogenous shocks” (with Y. Makhlouf) – the paper is being revised, it explores the intertemporal risk smoothing role of banks, which does appear important for developing economies, yet being market-based better promotes growth in developed countries
“Delegation of Monitoring With and Without Financial Intermediation” (with T. Wang) – under revision - here we show that the monitoring service, which is traditionally seen as a justification for banks, can be well accommodated in a different mode of finance - conglomeration; banks would then serve riskier and more complex businesses where their bookkeeping advantage saves audit cost, i.e. if auditing one bank is cheaper than auditing the whole complex conglomerate.
"Trade openness, export diversification, and political regimes" (with Y. Makhlouf and N. Kellard), Economics Letters, 2015, Vol.136 , pp. 25-27 - this is a spin-off of the above, showing that the relationship between openness and diversification of exports depends very much on the political regime.
“Destructive Effects of Constructive Ambiguity in Risky Times”, Journal of International Money and Finance, 2012, Vol. 31, pp. 1459-1481 - here I show that "constructive ambiguity" in policy is harmful when macroeconomic risks are high, which has implications for policy communication.
“Credit risk contagion and the global financial crisis” (with A. Takeyama and N. Constantinou), WP 2012-E-15, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan, 2012
“A framework for extracting the probability of default from stock option prices” (with A. Takeyama and N. Constantinou), WP 2012-E-14, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan, 2012
“Banks, Credibility, and Macroeconomic Evolution after a Production Shock”, The Manchester School, 2011, Vol. 79(3), pp. 480–509 - I like this paper, it studies intertemporal smoothing of risks by banks, and demonstrates fragility of a highly competitive banking sector, with implications for regulatory interventions in crisis times
“Financial Sector Structure and Financial Crisis Burden” (with G. Mavrotas), Journal of Financial Stability, 2007, Vol. 3, pp. 295-323 - this paper appeared first but actually it is based on the model from above, with a different type of exogenous shock and tractable explanations of some stylized facts about the Russian financial crisis.
“Do CDS spreads reflect default risks? Evidence from UK bank bailouts”, with A. Takeyama and N. Constantinou WP 2010/10, Essex Business School, University of Essex, 2010 - this is an interesting paper, where we show that although CDS prices in the UK did not change much during the 2008-10 financial crisis, this did not signify low default risks (as compared to the USA) but rather implied an increase in recovery rates, which was higher in the UK than in the US.
Contracts and mechanisms
“Efficiency of Lowest-Unmatched Price Auctions” (with J. Eichberger), Economics Letters, 2016, Vol. 141, pp. 98–102 - shows that LUPAs, although often confused with lotteries, are actually a fair and efficient allocation mechanism ... albeit only in expected terms!
"Lowest-Unmatched Price Auctions" (with J. Eichberger), International Journal of Industrial Organization, 2015, Vol. 43, pp. 1-17 (lead paper) - you can buy a house or a car for under €20 - only if nobody placed the same bid as yours, and there is no lower bid placed by only one player. How would you bid? This paper characterises a solution of this auction-game.
“Least Unmatched Price Auctions: A First Approach”, with J. Eichberger, Discussion Paper 471, Alfred Weber Institute, University of Heidelberg, 2008 - this is the very first approach to LUPAs, different from other papers in that we deviate from the assumption of one bid per player, and (at the expense of a different restriction) derive the first and only (so far) explicit solution of the game. No plans to publish this paper in a journal. The "Lowest-Unmatched Price Auctions" in IJIO paper is a continuation of this research, yet a different paper.
“Delegation of Monitoring With and Without Financial Intermediation” (with T. Wang) – under revision - here we design a mechanism to combine entrepreneurs, capital providers (investors) and the provider of a special service - monitoring - in an optimal mode of finance.
“Public-Private Partnerships as Collaborative Projects: testing the theory on cases from EU and Russia” (with E. Shadrina), Essex Finance Centre Working Paper No 6: 02-2016 - under review - here we consider the state and the private businesses as collaborators on one project and demonstrate benefits that a partnership can yield over standard contractual arrangements.
Public sector
“Public-Private Partnerships as Collaborative Projects: testing the theory on cases from EU and Russia” (with E. Shadrina), Essex Finance Centre Working Paper No 6: 02-2016 - International Journal of Public Administration (published online 16/01/2018) - we present a simplified version of our model and collect a number of interesting cases from waste management and road traffic management sectors that illustrate how our theoretical model works
“KIBS for Public Needs” (with E. Shadrina and M. Doroshenko) – Journal of Public Procurement, R&R - public procurement of knowledge-intensive services (e.g. advertising or IT) is constrained by procurement regulation, while private businesses have no restrictions, and (big surprise!) private businesses choose methods of procurement that most would blame as non-competitive, yet they achieve better appropriation of services - some clear implications for procurement regulations!
"Public Procurement Mechanisms for Public Private Partnerships" (with E. Shadrina and L. Kokareva), Journal of Public Procurement, 2014, Vol. 14(4), pp. 538-566 - PPPs do not need a special Law, everything is already in the procurement legislation... if the institutional environment is right.
"PPP legislation: an economic justification and international experience" Public Administration Issues, 2013, No. 4, pp.166-190 (in Russian, with E. Shadrina) - the paper was written as a response to the debate in Russia on the content of the proposed PPP Law.
“Public-private partnerships as a form of business organization”, Public Administration Issues, 2012, No. 4, pp. 5-19 (in Russian, with E. Shadrina) - our very first approach to PPP, where we try to position it among other types of business organization, simple but instructive.
Knowledge-intensive services
“KIBS for Public Needs” (with E. Shadrina and M. Doroshenko) – Journal of Public Procurement, R&R
"Knowledge Intensive Business Services: the Russian Experience" (with M. Doroshenko, and I. Miles), Foresight-Russia, 2014. Vol. 8(4), pp. 24-38
“The Customization-Innovation Nexus in Knowledge-Intensive Business Services” (with I. Miles and M. Doroshenko) – under revision
“Knowledge Intensive Business Services as Generators of Innovations” (with M. Doroshenko and I. Miles), WP BRP 12/STI/2013, Higher School of Economics, 2013
“Knowledge-intensive business services in emerging economies: value (co)-creation in Russia” (with M. Doroshenko), Proceedings of the Grand Challenge in Services Conference: “Understanding complex service systems”, Cambridge, 2011
“External benefits from knowledge-intensive business services: evidence from Russia” (with M. Doroshenko), RESER 2011 Productivity of Services Next Gen - Beyond Output / Input. Conference Proceedings. Walter Ganz, Florian Kicherer, Alexander Schletz (eds.). Hamburg: Fraunhofer IAO, 2011
“Intellectual Services in Russia”, with M. Doroshenko, I. Berezin, N. Sidorova, A. Suslov (in Russian), Moscow, Belovodye, 2010