Summer School in Almaty, Kazahstan: MACROECONOMICS MODELING and FORECASTING

Dates: 28 July – 11 August 2002

Host Institutions: New Economic School, Moscow, Russia
and Institute for Economics and Finance, Almaty, Kazakhstan

Location: Institute for Economics and Finance, Almaty, Kazakhstan

Eligibility

Discipline: Economics
Region/Countries: Central Asia
Language(s): Russian

 

Course Director: Dr. Oleg Zamulin, New Economic School, Moscow, Russia

 

Contact Information For Applicants:

Postal Address:
New Economic School,
Nakhimovskiy pr. 47, Suite 1721,
Moscow, 117418 Russia
Telephone: +7 095 129 3236
Fax: +7 095 129 3722, +7 095 129 1144
E-Mail: akhmelev@nes.ru

Deadline for applications is June 10, 2002

The major goal of the Summer School is to introduce to economics faculty from the Central Asian States of the former Soviet Union the modern methods of macroeconomic modeling and forecasting. A team of professors from the New Economic School (NES) will teach advanced courses in macroeconomics and applied time series econometrics. Knowledge of macroeconomic policy and forecasting is of crucial importance, as economies of the NIS become more market-oriented.

Specialists in this field are needed, among other places, in central banks, government ministries, the commercial banking sector, and investment funds. The Summer School will help the faculty of the Central Asian universities introduce the methods of macroeconomic modeling and forecasting, both traditional and novel, in their teaching at home universities, and foster a new generation of young macroeconomists.

 

Creating a new generation of professional economists for Kazakhstan and Central Asian States

Project summary

This project aims at facilitating the training of students and faculty from economics departments from Kazakhstan and Central Asian States (CAS) in modern economics. The project enables the students from areas where graduate education in modern economics is below Western standards, or indeed where it is largely absent, to attend a two-year Master of Arts program in Economics at the New Economic School. In the Academic year 2001-2002, NES admitted four citizens of Kazakhstan as students and seven young faculty members from the Central Asian universities as visiting fellows. They are undertaking the standard NES academic program. The students’ study at NES is funded by the Eurasia foundation (Almaty Regional office). The visiting fellows are sponsored by the Carana Corporation.

Rationale

Modern economics education in the CAS has been characterized by a lack of qualified instructors of all courses and a lack of scholarly journals and books available in libraries. While the curricula have changed during the last seven to eight years in economic departments, less has been done to retrain existing faculty members teaching the courses. Most instructors of economics courses have had no further instruction beyond reading the course materials. Additionally, there has been a sharp decline in the financing of higher education.

While a number of institutes offer basic, introductory courses in economics, intermediate and advanced courses are seldomly offered due to the lack of professors who possess the knowledge and training necessary to teach them. One of the primary ways of improving the standards of undergraduate education in economics is to provide "training for trainers", through outreach activities with foreign collaborators and centers of excellence. The provision of graduate education still relies primarily upon cooperation with Western universities, either through admittance of Kazakh and CAS citizens to those programs, or through visiting scholars coming to Kazakhstan to teach for short periods of time. In many ways, however, this contributes to the brain drain. In order to create sustainable graduate programs, young scholars need to be trained in the present and return to their home countries.

More work ahead

While our efforts at NES are primarily aimed at training the next generation of economic specialists and professionals that will return to their regional homes, other components are necessary and vital to building indigenous training programs. We are currently seeking funding for continuing education workshops and summer schools to take place in the region for existing faculty. This would allow the Moscow community of economists with advanced degrees in modern economics to visit the universities of the region, educate faculty members there, and discuss collaboration between the regions through research partnerships. This is already taking place on a smaller, short-term scale through the efforts of NES Outreach Activities with the help of CEFIR faculty and through the cooperative efforts of EERC.

In addition, other sponsors and donors should invest in building the institutional infrastructure at the universities of the region. This would include updating and improving classrooms, modernizing libraries, and creating or modernizing computer facilities, including electronic libraries, databases and distance learning infrastructure. After seven or eight years, the first PhDs from Kazakhstan and CAS should begin returning to their regional bases. In order to attract them and ensure that they will return sponsors should also secure funding to compensate them for their research skills and knowledge commensurate with the salaries they could earn in the West. This will foster a creative atmosphere for doing research and teaching, and encourage them to share their knowledge with regional experts and students interested in policy planning and reform needs specific to their region.