Alisher Aldashev (Kazakh-British Technical University) 27.10.2023

It is our pleasure that Dr. Alisher Aldashev (Kazakh-British Technical University) will present on Friday, October 27, 2023, at 12:45 in room RB109 about his research on the topic “Festivity spending rate race and underdevelopment: Theory and evidence from Central Asia”.

Registration is not required and anyone who would like to attend is warmly invited.

ABSTRACT: We examine the spending on festivities (including by the poor) and their link to underdevelopment. Using the large household survey from Kyrgyzstan, we document a substantial allocation of household income for festivities, often at the expense of essential needs like food and education. These expenditures, while enhancing social status and broadening social networks, have detrimental effects on health and education outcomes, thereby perpetuating poverty cycles. We build a simple game-theoretic model that highlights the rat-race nature of such expenditures and suggests that financial market liberalization alone might not be sufficient for poverty reduction. Multiple equilibria may exist locking the households in the bad equilibrium with low educational spending but high spending on festivities. Our analysis implies that regulating such expenses (a fiscal policy taxing festivity expenses) and using the proceeds to subsidize education may be Pareto improving.

BIO: Dr. Alisher Aldashevis a research-active economist with experience in education, management, and consulting across various countries spanning Europe to Central Asia. During his work at the Centre of European Economic Research, he spearheaded many projects for the Federal Ministry of Finance, the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Security, and various other agencies in Germany. He currently serves as a member of the Research Council for the National Bank of Kyrgyzstan. He was Dean of the International School of Economics – a highly successful project between the London School of Economics and Political Science (U.K.) and the Kazakh-British Technical University (Kazakhstan). Recently, he was instrumental in establishing the New School of Economics at Satbayev University (Kazakhstan) and became its Founding Dean. During his academic and research career, Dr. Aldashev has worked as a Professor of Economics at the Kazakh-British Technical University and at Satbayev University. His areas of academic expertise are development and labour economics, quantitative methods, and econometrics. Dr. Aldashev has published in quality international peer-reviewed journals in economics, as well as book chapters. He has taught various courses in economics: Introduction to Economics, Intermediate Micro and Macroeconomics, Labour Economics, as well as Statistics and Econometrics.