Prof. Vladimir Hlasny Conducts Research on Interaction between Individuals, Organizations and Government

  Prof. Vladimir Hlasny comes from the Czech Republic. He received his doctorate from Michigan State University in 2006. Before coming to Ewha, he worked as a research economist at a consulting firm, evaluating cases of worker discrimination by US employers. 

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  In his current research Prof. Hlasny specializes broadly on the study of interaction of firms, workers and governments, and on evaluation of government regulation of particular economic sectors. This covers a lot of interesting case studies. He conducts empirical research in various settings with assorted datasets. In the past four years he has studied alternative air-pollution rules for US energy plants; control of biological invasions of exotic pests; selfish political motives of energy regulators; motives why football referees appear to favor home teams; and inequality of opportunities in the labor market.

  One specific research involved studying patterns of employers’ discrimination among job candidates. Prof. Hlasny identified systematic processes by which employers in several countries collect inappropriate information about job candidates in order to choose the most preferred workers. He surveyed employers’ own justifications (some valid and some flawed) for the practice, as well as actual consequences for firms’ and workers’ performance. One of Prof. Hlasny’s studies on this subject is being published in the Journal of Labor Research this year. 

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  In 2013 Prof. Hlasny expanded his horizon by collaborating with several colleagues on new studies, to be published in refereed journals. With a colleague in the Graduate School of International Studies he evaluated why different countries adopt different fiscal responses to economic downturns. They found that countries’ regulatory and political institutions determine how feasible and how necessary it is for governments to offer fiscal stimulus. 

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  Prof. Hlasny also participated in a World Bank study evaluating precision of common measures of inequality in household surveys from different countries. They found that top-income individuals present an important statistical problem. They greatly affect measurement of inequality, yet they misreport their incomes, fail to fill out surveys, or are lumped together with other rich individuals by statistical agencies out of privacy concerns. They compared alternative methods for dealing with these data problems, including assigning greater weights to responding rich households, or replacing top incomes with estimates less susceptible to mismeasurement. 

  All in all, Prof. Hlasny is curious about various social problems, and various corners of the society. He has enjoyed his freedom to undertake diverse and interdisciplinary research, even though this means that he must continue learning new models and schools of thought. He does not consider himself a true expert on any specific subject, but he is an avid learner. 

E-mail: vhlasny@ewha.ac.kr      Homepage: http://home.ewha.ac.kr/~vhlasny/