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Aigul Bekberdiyeva: 'Equity market returns and the impact of the oil crisis in Kazakhstan and Russia: a comparative analysis'

My proposed research will focus on the impact of fluctuations in oil price to the stock markets of Russia and Kazakhstan, two of the main resource based economies of CIS, for which data are available. I am interested in investigating them in a comparative perspective on the aftermath of the 2014-2016 oil crisis, when oil prices fell to the lowest level in 12 years, in order to identify and measure the impact of the crisis on these markets. Clearly, resource based economies are heavily reliant on natural resource rents, so we would expect a significant decrease in the stock market returns, given that the stock markets reflect the health of the economy. However, it is interesting to examine whether the stock markets of Russia and Kazakhstan were affected in the same way, and understand which factors determined the depth of the fall in the stock markets. Another part of this work would be to look at global equity markets and their correlation with the returns of these emerging markets.

Bio and research interests

I am from Almaty, Kazakhstan and following my studies at ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº SSEES (BA, MA) I decided to start a PhD under the supervision of Dr Eugene Nivorozhkin at ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº SSEES. My research focuses on the correlation between oil price fluctuations and stock market returns in Russia and Kazakhstan.

Andrew Macmillen: 'Dostoevsky and infrastructure'

My thesis is on the subject of Infrastructure in Dostoevsky. Infrastructure is inherently connected with the the modern world which came into being during Dostoevsky's lifetime bringing with it urbanisation, the railways and other forms of connectivity. Infrastructure studies is a relatively new approach to reading literature, mainly applied to texts from the developing world. I hope to be able to demonstrate Dostoevsky's relationship with infrastructure and understand its role in his work.

Bio

I am a part-time first year PhD student returning to academia after an almost 30-year hiatus during which time I had a business career spending many years in Central & Easterm Europe.