The Kytasty Winners Award

The Kytasty Foundation

Victor Kytasty’s Biography

An award in memory of Professor Victor Kytasty was established in 2001 by the former EERC Program Director, Dr. Michael Blackman. Dr. Kytasty was the Senior Advisor to the EERC program and had received an honorary doctorate degree from Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. He passed away on September 22, 2000.

The “Kytasty Winners Award,” which is given annually at the KSE/ EERC graduation ceremony, gives special recognition to the graduating student receiving the highest thesis grade. It recognizes academic achievement and the pursuit of professional and personal excellence that was exemplified by Victor Kytasty.

In 2010, The Kytasty Winners' Best Thesis Award was supported by the Kytasty Foundation and KSE graduates: Olena Bilan (KSE’2002), Yuriy Gorodnichenko (KSE’2001),  Maxym Kryshko (KSE’2001), and Vyacheslav Sheremirov (KSE’2008).

The 2010 Award was given to Igor Buinyi for the best MA Thesis on “Organizational Form and Investment in Ukrainian Food Processing.” Currently, Igor has internship with Dragon Capital.

Igor Buinyi

Due to the fact that in the year 2009, the Kytasty Foundation was unable to support the Kytasty Award for the best MA thesis, we approached KSE graduates, the past Kytasty Award winners, with a request to support this year award.

We have received donations from:

Yuriy Gorodnichenko, KSE’2001;
Maxym Kryshko, KSE’2001;
Olena Bilan, KSE’2002;
Mykhaylo Salnykov, KSE’2004;
Anna Mogilyas, KSE’2005;
Vyacheslav Sheremirov, KSE’2008.

We express our sincere gratitude for the generosity of these graduates. Thanks to them, we have been able to continue the tradition of recognizing the best KSE thesis.

This year the Kytasty Winners' Best Thesis Award was shared between 3 KSE students:

Irina Mislitcaia (Moldova), “Remittances for the Republic of Moldova: A Way to Survive or a Chance to Succeed?”
Vladislav Nora (Ukraine), “On the Role of Incomplete Information in Investment Projects”
Yury Yatsynovich (Belarus), “Quality of Institutions and Private Investments in Infrastructure.”

Kytasty Award winners of the year 2009: Irina Mislitcaia, Vladislav Nora and Yury Yatsynovich.

Viacheslav Sheremirov

In 2008, the Kytasty Award was given to Viacheslav Sheremirov for the best MA Thesis on "Spatial Dependence in Regional Growth Model: The Case of Ukraine". Viacheslav will continue his studies at the PhD Program in Economics at the University of California, Berkeley.

Olena Chekmezova and Andriy Radomskyy

In 2007, the Kytasty Award for the best MA Thesis was split between two winners Olena Chekmezova and Andriy Radomskyy. Their thesis topics are the following: "Do We Pay for Clean Air: Hedonic Price Analysis of Housing Market in Kyiv" and "Analysis of Macroeconomic Shocks in the Former Soviet Union Countries" respectfully. Currently, Andriy works for Index Bank and Olena works for Colliers International.

In 2006, the winner of the Kytasty Award for the best MA Thesis is Sofiya Huzenko. Her thesis topic is the following: "Examination of the Border Efect in Ukraine: How Far is the East from the West?". Currently, Sofia works as a Financial Analyst for SARS company.

In 2005, the Kytasty Award was granted to Anna Mogilyas (thesis, "Firms' Heterogeneity, Monopolistic Competition in Differentiated Products and International Trade: a Generalized Model").)Currently, Anna works for Raiffeisen Bank Ukraine.

In 2004, the Kytasty Award was split between three winners: Kateryna Garmel (thesis, "The Impact of the EU Enlargement on Foreign Direct Investment in Acceding and Non-Acceding Countries"), and Oleksandr Kikot (thesis, "Essays on Deterring Foreign Direct Investors"), and Mykhaylo Salnykov (thesis, "Estimation of Environmental Inefficiencies and Shadow Prices of Pollutants: A Cross-Country Approach"). From fall 2004 Kateryra works for PricewaterhouseCoopers, Oleksandr studies at the Ph.D. Program in Economics at Pennsylvania State University, Mykhaylo – in Simon Fraser University.

In 2003, the Kytasty Award for the best thesis was granted to Andriy Gubachov (thesis, “Modeling the Influence of Property Rights Protection on the Gross Domestic Product in Ukraine”) and Roman Sysuyev(thesis, “The Optimal Foreign Trade Policy for Russian Cars in the Ukrainian Market”). Andriy is currently studying at the Ph.D. Program in Economics in Duke University. Roman is the Ph.D. student of the University of Rochester.

In 2002 the Kytasty Foundation established an annual fellowship to be granted to the winners of the “Kytasty Award.” Olena Bilan with the thesis on “Investigating the Liquidity Effect in the Ukrainian Interbank Market” has become a winner. Olena is now working for Dragon Capital.

In 2001, the “Kytasty Award” was jointly presented to two students who both received perfect scores on their theses: Maxym Kryshko and Yuriy Gorodnichenko. Maxym is now studying at the University of Pennsylvania, and Yuriy is a PhD student in economics at the University of Michigan.