Yulia Vymyatnina

Post-Soviet Integration: Fictive and Derivative

The issue of integration on the post-Soviet space has been extensively discussed in the political sciences literature and regionalism studies. Economists were not so concerned with the integration projects since most of them did not imply any serious economic integration; the only exceptions were discussions of potential introduction of a common currency in the post-Soviet space. Below we present the review of political and economic viewpoints on the integration between the former Soviet Republics with a view to identify a gap in existing studies of the issue.

Business Cycles Synchronization of Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan

Business cycles synchronization (or its absence) is important for planning further integration steps inas-much as it concerns integration within economic domain. The extent of (desirable) common macroeconomic policies depends on the degree and specifics of synchronization (disalignment) between the countries’ GDP and its components. Below we present results of a study of business cycles synchronization of different Customs Union (CU) countries using several concepts (long term and short term) and measures of business cycles comovements.

Suggested changes in economics education: a Russian perspective

This paper suggests a number of changes needed in the economics curriculum from a Russian perspective. These changes are required not only because of the recent crisis and the problems in the economic profession that it revealed, but also because of changes in society, major societal educational trends, and the mission of universities. Suggested changes include a more careful treatment of models and theories, the development of a broader reference base in social sciences in general, the development of greater social responsibility among economists, and changes in the self-reproducing system of economists within academia.