Professors Beyond the Lecture Hall: Gerhard Toews’s Story

Career path: trial and error

«It wasn’t a plan I had ex-ante, it’s just 'trial and error'.»

Anna: The first set of questions are about your career and research. How have you started your career? Why have you started your career in academia?

Gerhard: Sure… I'm not from an academic family, I'm from a migrant family moving in the late 80s, just before the Soviet Union collapsed, from Karaganda, Kazakhstan to Germany, and I grew up in Germany. I was never even considering… I would say, until the Master’s, I wasn't even completely aware of what a PhD is. I think, only during the Master’s I started grasping the concept. The reason I kept going is not because I had a clear goal in mind, I just tried different things. I always thought that that's not what I like and I kept moving until I reached the point which I liked. So, it wasn't a plan I had ex-ante, it's just ‘trial and error’. Before trying the PhD, I've tried many other things.

A: For example?

G: During the Bachelor's, I worked the whole summer because I thought this is where I might end up. Basically, I worked for Schufa. It's not a well-known institution outside Germany, but it's a very important institution for Germany. It's an institution which collects information on individuals and firms and provides this information to banks, which then use this information to decide whether to give you a loan or not. So, this is the only institution in Germany which is allowed to have this data and they have, basically, all the information about you. Then they use simple (I think, it was like 20 years ago), essentially, machine learning algorithms to predict the probability that you would default. If you're below a certain threshold, they will not give you a loan, and if you’re above, then they say, yeah, you should get a loan, that's it.

A: So, you worked as some kind of junior specialist?

G: I mean, I wouldn’t call it a specialist anyway [laughing]. I was working with data, and, I think, this is where I started liking working with data. This was the first time I had somebody competent next to me explaining to me how to run a logit regression or probit regression or whatever. Then after the bachelor’s, I went and worked for the German Chamber of Commerce in Kazakhstan for, again, half a year and I thought to maybe combine something like economics with international relations. After this half a year I understood that what they're doing doesn't seem sufficiently solid, I guess it felt a bit like making arguments out of thin air instead of making solid arguments. This is when I decided to do Master's because my Bachelor’s was not in economics, it was management in accounting and business. Then I went to do the Master’s in Economics in Scotland and this is where I understood that economics is so cool and that's what I want to do and that was it. Then after the Master’s I went to Central Asia, and did many interviews because I still thought that I wanted to collect my own data.

A: Where exactly in Central Asia?

G: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan. I was for the research team in Götingen, collecting information on the expectations of individuals in different firms and different public office positions, trying to predict in which direction Central Asia is developing. But at that time, economists didn't take surveys seriously in any way.

Now, like yesterday, this changed fundamentally, because Stephanie Stantcheva  got the John Bates Clark Medal, which is a big thing. Stephanie Stantcheva is the lady who has, I guess, made surveys acceptable to economists over the last few years. (She is a French professor from Harvard.)

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The Non-Financial Compass: Family, Coal, and the Joy of Research

«…you live with this, you understand how the economics of coal industry affects your life…»

«I just enjoy thinking about it and so I just keep doing because I enjoy it.»

«I think, it’s not clear at all ex-ante what you enjoy doing.»

A: What, anything apart from research work, inspires you? Probably, something you’d do if money wasn’t a thing.

G: Yeah, well, I mean, obviously… (I mean, I don't know whether obvious, but) I think most people who choose to stay in academia are not motivated too much, by money. Otherwise, there are outside options, which are just offering much more. So obviously this wedge somehow needs to be compensated. And the compensation is…

I grew up in a coal mining town, which was completely dependent on coal, so, most of my uncles, my father, they have been either engineers, constructing machines for the coal industry, or miners in the coal industry. You live with this, you understand how the economics of coal industry affects your life and, I think, that's, basically, it. So, I was just thinking about this and I still think about this. That's as simple as that [laughing]: I just enjoy thinking about it and so I just keep doing because I enjoy it. And, as I said, I think it's not clear at all ex-ante what you enjoy doing. I would even say that before me starting the PhD, since I didn't know what it is, I wouldn't even know whether I would enjoy doing research. It turns out that I do. But ex-ante, you don't know. It's a different experience from what you have experienced during the Bachelor’s or the Master’s. It may sometimes be equally painful, but it's still different experience.

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Necessary characteristic of a researcher

«During your Bachelor’s and your Master’s the system forces you to do things — if you don’t, you kicked out, <…> while in academia, you’re by yourself…»

A: And what’s the difference?

G: I think, I know exactly what it is. During your Bachelor's and your Master's the system forces you to do things — if you don't, you kicked out. So, you’re constantly under time pressure, you're constantly facing exams, essay submissions, thesis, whatever, while in academia, you’re by yourself, and if you are not going to push the argument or the idea you want to explore, nobody will push this for you. So you need to be incredibly stubborn, so I think this is a characteristics which I would nearly say is a necessary condition. So maybe even sufficient because I would say that I know many people, or I've seen many people incredibly smart, but who just struggled sticking to one specific task. Because the mind was constantly looking for new ideas and constantly looking for new adventures, exciting experiences, they didn't focus for sufficiently long to actually finish the painful parts of the argument necessary for your thesis. On the other hand, people who were less intelligent, in my opinion, (in the objective classical way, for example, how quickly you solve an IQ test or whatever), they would perform much better in the PhD because they would be able to go through this lengthy periods of painful data collection, or cleaning the data, or solving the model, or making the arguments internally consistent, whatever. You just go through it even though it's painful.

A: Well, when I was preparing for the interview, I found out that you have  said that working with data makes you meditate.

G: [laughing] Yes. I still think it's true, but that's exactly the point. So, if you hate doing this… I mean, you don't need to love every part of your job, but you want to minimize the parts which you hate, at least. And there are a few things which I hate about my job.

The other side of the coin

«…there are a few things which I hate about my job.»

A: Which ones?

G: … [pause]

A: Fingers crossed that it's not teaching or giving interviews to students :)

G: No. No. I don't like marking because, oh, it's unpleasant. But you have to do this. This is a small thing, because I spend one or a few days on this any year. Also, you sometimes have administrative tasks such as discussing the design of the new MyNES webpage. That's not something I'm just excited about. I would prefer to do my research or the teaching, but not that. The great thing is that there are people who are excited about this, so you can self-select into the things which you are more excited by and just avoid things which are less exciting.

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Starting in academia: motivation

«Do you know the feeling that you understand something, but it’s not quite there yet and it’s a little foggy?»

A: The question about starting in academia: what would you recommend for a person who is stubborn enough, and who is encouraged to start a career in academia?

G: Look, I started my PhD 15 years ago. It feels like lots has changed. In particularly, it feels a bit like competition became much harsher. I’m happy to elaborate on this. (Maybe people 15 years ago didn't understand how cool economics is and now they start understanding so competition becomes harder.) I think that the coolest thing I got out of the PhD is that… I mean, I still have this feeling regularly, but before the PhD, I had it more often, and I didn't know how to fix it. Do you know the feeling that you understand something, but it's not quite there yet and it's kind of foggy? It's a bit foggy, because you're not quite sure about the completeness, the correctness of the argument and your thoughts are a bit messy.

A: I live with this feeing.

G: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So what I think the PhD helped me with — is resolving it. Again, I want to emphasise: its still comes back regularly, but during the PhD, you forced to take this mess and (not over a month, or two, or three, but over a year or two), put this cleanly into the cupboard. And that's a very pleasant feeling. It's a mess and then you try to bring order into this. Not once or twice, but repeatedly, because that's what research is, right? I personally enjoy it and that's what I enjoy about research.

You keep doing this on a topic you emotionally connect to, in my case, this is natural resources for the reasons I already mentioned (because of my childhood, I guess. I mean, I didn't do any depth Freudian analysis of this, but it sounds like it's connected to where I'm coming from).

So, if a person thinks that life is about maximizing quality and number of cool experiences, obviously, that's one of them. So, obviously, you should just try this. Again, having said that, the opportunity costs to doing a PhD — it's takes time, you don't earn a lot of money — economically, it's not really worth it; maybe there are other things which people enjoy. For me, I don't think I would enjoy anything else as much, but this is my personal bias, right? What I recommend, is figuring out whether this is a feeling you would enjoy, and if this is a feeling you would enjoy, try it as an experience, if economically possible.

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Competition in academia has become intense

"The requirements, which a student needs to meet <…> to get a chance to be accepted for a PhD, I think, are on a different level now."

A: Well, you have said that you would be happy to elaborate on how harsh the competition has become during the past 15 years.

G: I mean, you must even observe this over the last two-three years because people went from, ‘if you finish a Master or Bachelor at NES or HSE, then you can apply for a PhD and go on’ to now, when this is much more difficult. Very often people actually don't even apply for the PhD anymore, but first go to a predoc, spend two years on a predoc, and then go for the PhD. Thus, by the time you are applying for the PhD, if you did your predoc at the right university, you already have been published and you have an extremely cool CV. When I applied… First of all, I've sent letters and emails, because universities didn’t have e-mails yet [laughing]. Second, I applied only to four places and not systematically — I just sent it —  and, yeah, it worked out somehow. I feel that in my case, I was much less prepared than all of you here. It feels like it became much more competitive. The requirements, which a student needs to meet, and how the CV needs to look like, to get a chance to be accepted for a PhD, I think, are on a different level now.

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Ethical considerations

«A very common concept, for some reason, is that a slightly senior person takes you as a co-author and then you essentially do all the work and, for some reason, the name of this slightly senior person is on the paper.»

A: What are some ethical considerations that are the most pressing in your work today? Pick any the most pressing, the one that you are the most concerned about. Let it be a bit more personal.

G: Okay. So, the personal thing — and I don't know whether it's a general thing, but I know that some people struggled with that — is free-riding. It is a big problem in academia. A very common concept, for some reason, is that a slightly senior person takes you as a co-author and then you essentially do all the work and, for some reason, the name of this slightly senior person is on the paper. This has been annoying me from the very beginning. I have these issues from the very beginning. I expressed my view on those issues from the very beginning, but it's like borderline impossible to fight because of these slightly more senior people. They are of a specific type. I would call them shameless and, uh, socially well connected. So, it's difficult to fight them. You just voicing this concern — doesn't matter because they're shameless— and, since they're working hard on having a very good network and being well connected with the right editors, there is little you can do to punish them for their behavior.

Uh, is that a big problem? Well, maybe not, maybe the fact that mineral companies are exploiting children and in DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) to extract coal is a bigger problem? Yeah, sure it is.

In the end of the day, I think I've learned —still difficult, but, I think I've learned — to screen people for co-authorships.

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Moving to Russia aligns with mission [im]possible

«I’m trying very, very hard to actually select those research projects and to work on those research projects, which, I think, have the highest potential for policy implications.»

A: So, I think that one of the interesting questions is how you see your impact on the industry, policy, society?

G: This one I have a very good answer to in the sense that it wasn't difficult for me to think about it. The reason why I'm in Russia is threefold — I moved to Russia for three reasons. First one — I wanted to live in a big city and Moscow is a big city. Second, I wanted to live in a big city within the set of cities which are not too far away from Germany. Moscow, again, fits this criteria. Third, I wanted to move to resource-rich economy, in particular, one which is dependent on oil, gas, coal, because that's what I am doing. Then in Europe you has just two options — it's Norway and Russia,— and Norway doesn't have a big city. That's how I was motivated in the first place. I'm trying — not sure whether I'm succeeding — I'm trying very, very hard to actually select those research projects and to work on those research projects, which, I think, have the highest potential for policy implications. Ex-ante it is difficult to know, but surely that's what I'm thinking about before I start a project. That's one of the criteria according to which I'm deciding whether I'm going to work on the project or not: whether it has a potential large policy implications. Unfortunately, not every government wants to listen to you, but, clearly the contribution motivates me.

A: What are the unanswered questions that keep you motivated to proceed? Probably, there is a couple that you bother you the most.

G: Okay, so do I understand correctly? The question is, what are currently the main driving questions of the research?

A: Right.

G: Okay. So, I would say three.

One is, and I genuinely think that Russia is moving with its great optimism into this new world in which the climate is changing thinking ‘oh, this country will become warmer we will produce more fruits and everything will be great’. At the same time, if you just look at the facts, permafrost is melting and buildings are collapsing, natural disasters are increasing in frequency and intensity. So maybe, there is this bright future somewhere in 50 years, but when you arrived there, there will be a huge costly transition, and I think I want to put on paper in numbers what this means because I don't think this has been properly done. At least, I'm not aware of the papers, which have done this properly. That's one thing.

The other thing is is related to my childhood memory of Karaganda. I tried to understand what happens to mining towns which collapse because the demand for the natural resources, which they have been providing, just vanished. This can happen for many reasons. For instance, the whole region of Kemerovo: economically, they’re in horrible situation. It's really difficult to fix this now but that's exactly the type of stuff I've been doing since my PhD, thinking about the coal mining towns in the UK, which have been closed down on the Margaret Thatcher. Trying to understand how to buffer those negative shocks, I think, is very important, in particular, for the people, but more generally for the government, because if you don't manage that there will be a social uprising.

The third one sounds like Karl Marks question [smiling]. There are rents from  resources and you need to decide how to share them between the workers, the capital owners and the people. How to share rents? I think, the way rents have been shared, in particular, in natural resource extraction, has been a disaster, and trying to think about how this can be improved — that's what I'm thinking about.

So these are the three things: climate change, rent sharing and resource extraction, and how to buffle the collapse of mining towns.

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Working at NES

Professors' community: sharpening ideas, collaboration, insights

«I talk with my colleagues about the ideas I have. Why it’s this useful? Because this is actually the process, which eliminates the fog, which we were talking about. So while you're talking, your arguments become clear, sharp, or more precise, until the fog is gone.»

«My supervisor, Tony Venables, used to say that co-authorships are like families: they are always different and you need to manage them»

A: The first question that came up to my mind is about collaboration, and you have mentioned earlier how you decided whether to start research or not. I've seen you with Shahir Safi and, I guess, you were talking about networks and resources. Is there any potential there?

G: Yeah, absolutely! The way it works for me — I don't know whether this is the way it works for other people — I talk because I like thinking about it. I talk with my colleagues about the ideas I have. Why it's this useful? Because this is actually the process, which eliminates the fog, which we were talking about. So while you're talking, your arguments become clear, sharp, or more precise, until the fog is gone. And one of the things I like doing is not only talking to my colleagues about it, but also talking to my parents, to my friends…

When talking to colleagues, sometimes things just appear. I think it's rarely that you kind of meet and say: “Okay, let's write a paper!”. It's kind of an endogenous process.

I can tell you about one project which Hosny (Hosny Zoabi) and I have been talking about, I'm not exaggerating, for four or five years. Just once in a while we had lunch and talked about this and, I think, sixteen months ago we thought: ‘okay it's time, let's write it’. Now, actually, the results are ready and we're writing it up. It's difficult to predict how this will turn into the paper, you just keep talking and at some point it clicks, and then it's there.

A: Are there any insights for you as a result of collaboration with other people? Maybe not the research related, but also some kind of life insights.

G: Oh, absolutely. First of all, the things which I understand from other people while doing research I can also apply to my life, right? Economics, in particular, the empirical evidence or the theoretical models we're using is applicable to our life. The first time I understood that economists tried to equalize margin utilities across activities in order to maximize overall utility. Wow! Or you want to use the prisoners dilemma to think about why a person is playing defect and how repeated games can fix this. I think, you can always apply this in your private life.

Moreover, my supervisor, Tony Venables, used to say that co-authorships are like families: they are always different and you need to manage them. Of course, I would nearly say that, without exception, in all of my goods projects, I would not always, but repeatedly disagree with my co-authors — you would disagree on things and you would really have an argument, an emotional one. For example, with Marta (Marta Troya Martinez) we have had this as well. You're spending so much time together, thinking about an idea, and you discuss things, and you, at some point, disagree during this process. By resolving this disagreement, one actually makes the argument stronger. You fight through this, because you disagreed on something. So, I think it's incredibly useful for the project, and through the process you also bond.

A: To proceed with collaborations and networking at NES, how the network of professors is constructed, how do you spend time together?

G: Well, it's like in every family, every school or in every university. There's huge heterogeneity and with some people you connect more, with some people you connect less, and you, of course, frequently meet those people with whom you connect more. Obviously, you go out…

A: Is it difficult to find friendship at NES?

G: I don't think so. I don't know what other think [laughing]. To be fair, I came here because I was already friends with Misha and Marta (Mikhail Drugov and Marta Troya Martinez). So, I know Marta because we both did the PhD in the UK, we already knew each other before. But I'm extremely happy with my colleagues not only for professional but also for private characters.

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Professor's perspective: the most valuable thing at NES

«It’s a bit like you’re living in a bubble where you interact with smart, nice, decent human beings.»

A: What do you value the most at NES?

G: That's a tricky one, I seriously think there are many things and they’re equally important for me. If you press me to  identify one — again, there are many things —  I think, the quality of the students. I'm not exaggerating, and I think many of my colleagues would agree, and this is not me making something up, given that you are doing the interview. I don't think any of us has operated with any university and seen something comparable. This is cool because when you're doing the lecture you can see the connection and this is not always given. I mean, just ask Marta (Marta Troya Martinez) who has just recently made a different experience and told me about it [laughing]. I think everybody will agree with this.

Also it's cool that you have these high quality conversations, which, of course, is correlated with the teaching experience. It's a bit like you're living in a bubble where you interact with smart, nice, decent human beings — that's, I think, what makes a huge difference to many other places. Again, there are other things as well, which are complementary to this, but I think this is certainly in the top three.

A: It's a pleasure to get such an answer. So, how do you balance between  teaching and research?

G: Oh, it's difficult. The way the world works: the the main criteria for getting a tenure position at the university as a professor is your publication record, not your teaching evaluation. So the incentives are such that you're focusing on the former, not on the latter. You should be. But of course, if you like your job, whatever you incentives are, you do it because you believe that that's the right thing to do it. So even if the incentives are not aligned, you invest in teaching because you, want to do a good job. And that crowds out time from other things.

Now, having said that, I think that NES is very reasonable with how much you teach, it's not like we're completely overwhelmed. Finally, I want to add that despite the fact that I'm completely exhausted now, at the end of my teaching period,— because I tried to keep my research alive while doing teaching, — I think, it's highly complementary, because I'm interacting with you and because I'm teaching actually the stuff I like.

Every year I keep closing holes in my understanding because we have a conversation and somebody says something and ‘oh, of course that makes sense’, I think, not a year has passed since I arrived at NES that I wouldn't get after those four months of teaching new ideas on what kind of research to do. It becomes clear: ‘oh, that's not clear’. That's either not clear for the student, or not clear for me, or not clear for both of us, and that's cool.

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Fun, adventures and spare time

Travelling

«Surely, my profession dictates where I’m traveling, but I wouldn’t call it business. I would always call it leisure.»

A: Do you travel a lot?

G: Unfortunately, the current situation is complicated. Before I did travel more, now I do travel less. That's in a nutshell. I try my very best. Two years ago, I managed to go to a conference in Alaska and in a month, I'm going to a conference in Almaty, which for Russians maybe is not interesting, but Kazakhstan is a country my country of origin, so I'm looking forward to go. I try, but my life is simply too busy right now.

A: In the lectures you have already mentioned a couple of your trips with  other professors.

G: Did I? Which one did I mention? [laughing]

A: For example, you mentioned your trip to Samara.

G: Ah, with Michele (Michele Valsecchi)! Yes, that's true.

A: Was it on business purpose?

G: No, no. My ancestors moved to the area of Saratov and Samara in the 18th century and one of the first thing I wanted to do whenever I arrive to Moscow is actually to travel there, to go to the villages where I knew they were moved from in 1941 and yeah, and I told Michele and at that time we had another professor (his now gone), and the three of us jointly flew to Kazan, then took the car south, and visited the villages where my ancestors were.

A: Sounds increadibly nice. You have already mentioned (also in the lectures), that you' ve traveled to Mozambique and to Norway. So is there a difference between the travels that you opted for on business and vacation travels?

G: The thing is, I like what I'm doing. So, I don't think of it as business. Yeah, I know what you mean, and I think, that's how people who work in the private sector would think about it. But the thing is, I don't think about it that way at all.

For instance, last time I went to Norway, we had a small workshop on resources. Two my friends, one from the US and one from the UK, came there, and we worked for two days, and then we had a few beers, and then the day after we went up a small mountain. Do you call this business or leisure? I mean, for me, this is clearly leisure because I've joined all of it. I think, it's it's difficult to disentangle. Surely, my profession dictates where I'm traveling, but I wouldn't call it business. I would always call it leisure.

A: The part of my research for the interview brought me to some pictures of you on a hiking trip. Was it Altai?

G: I haven't been to Altai. I would want to go because that's where my mom was born there, but I haven't been to Altai. Well, I've been to Ulan -Ude. I've been to Yakutsk. In Norway we hiked a month ago. Also we hiked in Alaska, 2022. But that’s not Altai, I haven’t been to Altai mountains but, you know, it's on my to-do list.

A: Anywhere else in Russia?

G: Yes, of course. I've been to Yakutsk last October, I think, again, pleasure and work. When I finished my PhD, the present to myself was to fly to Novosibirsk and take the Trans-Siberian to Ulan-Ude, stay at the Baikal lake, and then take the train to Ulaanbaatar and stay in Mongolia during their yearly festivals (horse riding). I thought it was very cool.

A: What's the most adventurous or the most awkward thing that you have a done yeah?

G: There are few. And I cannot say all of them on tape [laughing].I think one of the cool things which just happened to me is… When I was 20, I flew to Brazil, because my cousin worked as a Christian missionary in Brazil and worked there with him. And then we thought — ‘Oh, let's take the bus’— because, we didn't have much money,—  ‘and drive to Chile’. That's like crossing the continent.

It took us quite some time, we arrived in Santiago de Chile, and it was really cool, we spent a few days there and enjoyed it. On the way back, went crossing the mountains in Chile — you have this huge Andes which you to cross to get first into Argentina and then Brazil — we got robbed. We were left with our stuff but without any money and without our passports. My cousin, who still has his Bible and was a missionary, started doing this amazing thing. Basically, he would arrive to the bus station and say: ’Hi. I'm a missionary, this is my cousin. We just got robbed. Could you please help us with the tickets?’ Long story short, I will not go through every single step, but without any money within, I think, 48 hours, we got a place to sleep, bus tickets back to Foz do Iguaçu. Foz do Iguaçu are those beautiful waterfalls at the crossing between Brazil and Argentina, where our friends would pick us up by car and all the way people would constantly give us food.

I don't think it's a crazy story, It's just something which I enjoy remembering because we didn't have anything and people just kept giving us stuff. I don't think this would work for everybody. I still think that the fact that my cousin had a Bible end was claiming that he's a missionary was helpful, but I thought it was a very cool experience.

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Free time, hobbies, wishes, work-life balance

«My work is my hobby and I enjoy it very much doing it.»

A: What about your hobbies? What do you enjoy in your free time? Sports, music, theatre?..

G: I genuinely love reading. I don't have the energy right now, in particular during the teaching period, when I’m barely surviving, but I like reading. One of the few things I still try to take time for is (not anymore reading because I can't, I just don't have the capacity, but) listening to books. And so I think I would say that on average I'm trying to listen to half an hour to one hour a day.

Sure, I would enjoy theater or musical concert, but I wouldn't call this my hobby. It's something I would do as a social event. I have some colleagues who have a very clear vision like ‘I need to do this once in two or three months this and that and they talk about it’ — I don't. I just do this for company.

It sounds very generic, but I cannot be more specific, I try to have qualitative relationships in my life. I cannot have many of them, but I can have a small, clearly defined set of them, and I try to make sure that they remain of high quality. So I spend time with those people, which is family, friends, friends from childhood, friends here or in other countries, and this is time-consuming. You need to coordinate where you meet, how you meet, which mountain you hike in the Altai mountains [laughing]. 

So, reading and collecting positive emotional experience with people I care about, that's — if you want to call it — hobby, I guess. In terms of specific type of sport or something, I just don't have it. My work is my hobby and I enjoy it very much doing it.

A: You said earlier that you are at NES every day. Do you mean weekends as well? [smiling]

G: No, but I mean, I spend time with family and friends, and the weekend I would invest in personal relationships. I don't think I'm good at the work-life balance. I think, partly this is because I like what I'm doing, but I'm getting better. I keep managing once a week not to think about work.

A: Like for a minute?

G: [laughing] No, for a day. Thank you for clarifying. One day a week, not to think about work. Yes.

A: As soon as we have already started talking about books, could you please elaborate on the way how you choose what book to recommend?

G: All my recommendations come from a set of the most recent books I've listened to. So this will change. Whatever is in my mind right now, whatever is easily accessible in my memory - I am taking the set, choosing the ones I liked most recently and recommend.

A: Fair enough. What’s the most recent recommendation in relation to behavioral economics?

G: This is, I think, a very cool book called 'Behave' by Robert Sapolski (a guy from Stanford, he's a neurobiologist). If you want me to summarize the book, I would call it the biological micro-foundations of microeconomics. He builds up from biological connections in the brain up to human behavior, emotional responses, and rational responses, and tries to explain why some people do the hard thing - the morally right thing, but hard thing, and others do not. That's an extremely long book and it it took me a long time to fight through the first couple of chapters, but I think it's worth it.

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Endeavours, moral compass and principles

«I still have this association with Mafia that people are lying, which undermines trust. Imagine playing it with your partner! You basically observe how the person is lying to you in front of everybody else.»

A: Is there anything that you haven't tried yet, but you want to try?

G: Okay, that's a deep one… When I was 25 or something, I wrote a list of things, I want to do before I die. I've done them. I finished the list, so I'm actually in the process of creating a new list, but the things I actually wanted to do and which were on my list, I took them off roughly three years ago. I've been since recreating a new list but I'm not there yet. Obviously, I can tell you things like ‘I would like to travel to DRC and visit the cobalt mines in the southeast’, but this not nearly sufficiently big thing. So I cannot tell you something nice.

A: We will see that. Later, when the list is done. Well, about something small: I've heard that you don't like Mafia, one of your former students told me that.

G: [laughing] Yes, I remember. That's true. I even remember the situation. Oh my God, that seems so long ago. Look, I think it [Mafia]  is a great idea and, as far as I know, the idea was developed by a psychologist student that MSU. If you just Google, you will find that it is a psychologist student from Moscow who developed it. The idea was to say that a small group of extremely well informed individuals can bring under control a larger, but badly informed group of people, and that's what my field courses about. But why I don't like it — I still remember — it because I would  play it with my brother and his friends,  and I still remember him, being the Mafia, and during the conversation him just lying to me. I suppose, this had a negative long-term effect on our relationship, because he was so good at it and I believed him. That, I think, undermined trust between the two of us. So, I don't like it because of that. If you do it in a fun way… It depends how seriously you take this. I still have this association with Mafia that people are lying, which undermines trust. Imagine playing it with your partner! You basically observe how the person is lying to you in front of everybody else. This is why I don't play it.

A: So, honesty is the core. What else? What you value in people?

G: Oh. For sure, integrity, no doubt about that. Yeah, I think integrity is one of the absolutely most important characteristics,— not the same opinion, not loyalty, not success,— none of those. Integrity. With integrity, I mean person being truthful to other people and consistent in behavior, and also to him- or herself, which is nearly a necessary condition for the former. So, a person being honest to him- or herself, and honest to others. I think that that makes the communication worth it. Everything else - is just you don't know what you're dealing with. And you often feel this, I think. So I like the British word. I don't know how the Russians would call this, in the UK, you say ‘genuine’. Sometimes you meet a person, you talk to the person, and you know there's something not genuine about this, and you cannot really identify what it is, but you feel it's not general and and and I think for this to be genuine, you actually need this ‘the person is honest to herself and to others’. And then you can have this this qualitative conversation connection. You see what I mean? So, absolutely, that's maybe the key.