The Forum for Research on Eastern Europe and Emerging Economies (FREE Network) stands for peace, security and democracy and condemns Russia’s invasion of the independent and democratic nation of Ukraine and violation of international law.

Given the current situation, Swedish financial support to Russia has been put into question. This was recently discussed in the major Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, in an article in which Anders Olofsgård, Deputy Director of the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics (SITE), was interviewed among others.

On February 24th, Martin Carlsson-Wall, the Director for the Center for Sports and Business and Course Director of the new elective course Investments and Value Creation in Global Sports on the master level received the Outstanding Pedagogical Achievement Award for autumn 2021.

In the latest episode of Ekonomibyrån "The stock market in times of crisis" Torbjörn Becker, Director of the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics (SITE), discusses the crisis between Russia and Ukraine. What are the potential economic consequences and what are the long-term effects?

Last year, the Stockholm School of Economics and their venture incubator SSE Business Lab launched Ideate, a new entrepreneurship initiative meant to get more students to start companies. Now the program reaches new levels, as the Stockholm School of Economics and the KTH Royal Institute of Technology join forces, making it possible for students from both of these prestigious schools to participate and start businesses together.

In a recently published op-ed in Dagens Industri (in Swedish), Torbjörn Becker shares his insights on Russia's real threat from the West, which is economic and not military.

How much a country is talked about in the media can determine its place in the public debate. In this brief, SITE researchers Maiting Zhuang and Svante Strömberg study the amount of news coverage devoted to European countries in the Swedish press. They document a systematic difference between Western and Eastern Europe and explore underlying factors that could be important in explaining this East-West divide.

There are claims that development aid is ineffective and does not yield results. What does research say about the effects of development aid? SITE Deputy Director and researcher Anders Olofsgård provides his insights in the latest episode of "Biståndskvarten - Om forskning och fakta" by ForumCiV.

In recent years, there have been several high-profile leaks of documents related to the offshore financial industry, such as the Pandora Papers released last year. Some of the data contained in the leaked documents have now been made public. In this brief, SITE researchers Jonathan Lehne and Maiting Zhuang discuss the advantages and pitfalls of using these data for economic analysis. They show that despite some caveats, there are patterns in these data that can shed light on a secretive industry.

The recent record-high gas prices have triggered legitimate concerns regarding the EU’s energy security, especially with dependence on natural gas from Russia. This brief discusses the historical and current risks associated with Russian gas imports. SITE researchers Chloé Le Coq and Elena Paltseva argue that decreasing the reliance on Russian gas may not be feasible in the short-to-mid-run, especially with the EU’s goals of green transition and the electrification of the economy. To ensure the security of natural gas supply from Russia, the EU has to adopt the (long-proclaimed) coordinated energy policy strategy.