2nd day at RSSIA 2011
In the morning of the second day the participants enjoyed the lectures by Russell Pittman, researcher from the US Ministry of Justice. They were dedicated to the natural monopolies and the basic ideas of cross-subsidizing. There were no too sophisticated theoretical constructs that might be interesting only to the narrow group of researchers, but they were strongly connected to the reality, namely, the public antitrust policy. Is there a best policy in this sphere, beneficial to the whole society?
In the morning of the second day the participants enjoyed the lectures by Russell Pittman, researcher from the US Ministry of Justice. They were dedicated to the natural monopolies and the basic ideas of cross-subsidizing. There were no too sophisticated theoretical constructs that might be interesting only to the narrow group of researchers, but they were strongly connected to the reality, namely, the public antitrust policy. Is there a best policy in this sphere, beneficial to the whole society? Should people care about cross-subsidies and why? – these and many other questions were considered in the lectures. The analysis of real cases (e.g. US telecommunication sector, Mexican railways, Russian electricity sector) made theoretical ideas much more illustrative and easy to follow.
The second lecture of John Nye covered the methodology of fundamental studies, being new institutional economics classics, namely, Coase (1937), Williamson (1975, 1983), Klein, Crawford and Alchian (1978) and Joskow (1987). In fact, considering these papers from an unusual point of view – as the papers written in different style with different structure and methodology - was extremely useful; hardly anybody had done it before.
After the lunch the participants of the RSSIA had almost 4 hours to discuss their projects with the experts (G. Jones, J.Nye, R. Pittman, S. Popov, K. Shoors and M. Yudkevich). No doubt anyone needs a bit of support and praise, however the constructive critics may matter even more, especially from the researchers who are familiar with the topic. In addition to this, explaining your research project to somebody may help you in crystallizing ideas, making them clearer, simpler and more substantial.
In the evening the participants were playing a game “The hat” with the following rules: each player wrote down 3 names of famous people or character, then the papers were mixed and put in the hat. Each player had to explain to his partner as many names as he could in 30 seconds. The Wimbledon was not in vain – there were several Rafael Nadals among the names, but no Russian tennis player. Although there was no Italian participant, the Italians were really in demand (Garibaldi, "Al" Pacino, Tarantino). After the game the researchers were singing songs with guitar and a capella. Now we do know who is the singer №1 among the experts.