Sovcomflot
Assistant
Professor of Economics,
"Master of Arts in Economics" Program Director
New Economic School
Office 1721-5
Nakhimovsky pr, 47
Moscow 117418,
Russia
Tel.: (+7-495) 129-3236 ext. 121
Fax: (+7-495) 129 - 3722
E-mail:
ozamulin(a)nes.ru
Home page: http://www.nes.ru/~ozamulin/
Curriculum vitae: pdf
Teaching
at NES
see homepage
for all teaching activities
Macroeconomics–1,
3, 4, 6
Profile
Oleg
Zamulin joined NES in September 2001 (joint appointment with CEFIR). He received
his B.A. in Economics at Grinnell College, Iowa, in 1996, and Ph.D. in Economics
at the University of Michigan in 2001. At NES, he also serves as the Director
of the Outreach Center. Dr.Zamulin is a winner of the Prize "The Best Russian
Economists" from the Science Support Foundation.
Research
see homepage
for detailed list of publications and other activities
The title of Zamulin's doctoral dissertation was "Essays on Sticky-Price Models
of the International Business Cycle," and his general research interests are in
the field of open-economy macroeconomics. He has conducted research on the issues
of the effect of openness on the degree of price stickiness and real effects of
nominal shocks, behavior of the current account and exchange rates in the open
economy, and long-horizon predictability of stock returns.
His current
topics of macroeconomic research include price dollarization, real exchange rate
behavior, and monetary policy. In co-authorship with Irina Levina, Dr. Zamulin
has demonstrated that a country with high inflation can switch to equilibrium
with uniform foreign currency pricing of all goods, including non-tradables. Furthermore,
a reduction of inflation does not need to lead to a corresponding switch back
to local currency pricing, even if such a switch were socially optimal. A country
can be trapped in a dominant equilibrium with pricing in dollars. Dr. Zamulin,
in co-authroship with Konstantin Styrin, then examined price formation in the
apartment markets of different cities, which are stuck in these different equilibria.
After the 1998 devaluation, price level and the ruble exchange rate diverged greatly,
and the prices of apartments in the cities with ruble and dollar pricing differed
markedly. Searching for one model, which can simultaneously explain both price
paths given these external conditions, Dr. Zamulin demonstrated that only a sticky-price
model with adaptive expectations does well. Other models, such as those based
on rational expectations and sticky information, were rejected or found weak support.
In co-authroship with Dr. Sosunov, Dr. Zamulin has also investigated
the correspondence of the real exchange rate behavior in Russia to the fundamental
value of the ruble dictated by the prices of oil. In a calibrated general equilibrium
model of the Russian economy, they have found that since 1998, the real appreciation
of the ruble has been in line with the increase in export revenues, and therefore,
corresponds to the fundamentals.
Simultaneously to conducting work in
the area of macroeconomics, Dr. Zamulin is co-leading a large project at CEFIR
studying the administrative barriers to small business development. The project
is aimed to monitor the effect of the debureacratization program, recently started
by the Russian government and loudly applauded by business and academic organizations.
Two rounds of surveys covering 20 Russian regions showed a reduction in the administrative
burden following the introduction of the laws. At the same time, it is clear that
the situation remains much worse than the target level outlined in the new laws.
It was found that the progress depends positively on the fiscal incentives of
the local governments, and negatively on the level of industrial concentration.
