Natalia Ryzhova
Dr. Natalia Ryzhova is the director of the newly established Center for Asian-Pacific Studies in the Far Eastern Federal University. She graduated from Saint-Petersburg State Engineering and Economics Academy in 1995. She obtained her PhD (Candidate of Science) in economics in 2005, and her higher PhD (Doctor of Science) in 2013. She also holds an MA in Social Anthropology from Cambridge University (2014).
Natalya is an economist who believes in the value of anthropological thoughts for understanding economic development. Most of her work has been about informal (real) economic practices on the Russian-Chinese border. She studied intermediation in international migration, land property rights, smuggling, shuttle traders and bribes, etc. Her interests span economics, institutional economics, political economy, anthropology and sociology. Publications include “Trans-border Exchange between Russia and China: The Case of Blagoveshchensk and Heihe” (in Eurasian Geography and Economics, 2009; with G. Ioffe) and “Informal economy of translocations. The case of the twin city of Blagoveshchensk-Heihe” (in Inner Asia, University of Cambridge, 2008), published in Russian and English.