Nobel laureate Robert Shiller, in his major book “Irrational Optimism,” came to the conclusion that the real culprit of economic bubbles is irrational social psychology. The main book of Yale economics professor Robert Shiller, Irrational Exuberance (in the Russian translation, “Irrational Optimism”) has been reaching the Russian reader for 13 years. But it was published shortly after the announcement of the Nobel Prize being awarded to the author.

Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili on Thursday did not appear at the country's Chief Prosecutor's Office, where he was summoned for questioning as a witness in several cases, RIA Novosti reports . The Prosecutor General's Office has not yet commented on the situation. Supporters and opponents of Saakashvili gathered outside the prosecutor's office on Thursday. The latter threw eggs at supporters of the former president, and a fight broke out, Interfax reports .

A number of international contacts of Rosatom may be subject to restrictions due to possible sanctions in the economic sphere, RIA Novosti reports on Thursday, March 27, citing the head of the state corporation Sergei Kiriyenko. “Taking into account a number of comments about possible restrictions on economic relations, we understand that some of the (international) contracts may be subject to political restrictions,” Kiriyenko said.

Photo by Diomedia The owner of the NBA Kings club, Vivek Ranadivé, wants to transform American Sacramento into a “city of the 21st century.” How did a sports team end up at the heart of his ambitious plan? Vivek Ranadive decided to first set up in his modest office at the training center of the Sacramento Kings basketball team, based in the California capital of Sacramento. But then I changed my mind. “We better go to the site.

American and European intelligence agencies are noting signs of a continuing concentration of Russian forces in areas bordering Ukraine, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing sources. Western intelligence agencies have data indicating there are now more than 30,000 Russian troops along the entire border with Ukraine, according to sources familiar with the reports. Last week there were reports of 20,000 Russian troops.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday stressed the need to analyze the events in Ukraine and other “color revolutions” in order to protect the country's citizens from terrorist elements and people with extremist views, RIA Novosti reported . The head of the Russian state called on parliamentarians during a meeting with members of the council of the chamber of the Federation Council not to make decisions that could significantly limit the rights and freedoms of citizens.

Sberbank of Russia wrote off 9 billion rubles, including for the construction of Olympic facilities in Sochi 2014, which seriously affected the bank’s financial results in 2013, Sberbank CFO Alexander Morozov said on Thursday during a telephone conference with investors. “We wrote off goodwill (write-off of intangible assets) for construction participation to zero. This is approximately 9 billion Russian rubles,” RIA Novosti quotes him as saying.

photo ITAR-TASS The final payments under the deal will not be $1.4 billion, as previously expected, but $1.35 billion Partners of the investment company Troika Dialog (now Sberbank CIB), who sold the company to Sberbank in 2011, will not receive an additional $50 million: the final payments under the transaction will not be $1.4 billion, as previously expected, but $1.35 billion.

Conrad Alex Author The sole investor of WhatsApp, the “Facebook mafia” and beneficiaries of the Twitter IPO: whose investments in technology companies turned out to be the most far-sighted Forbes presents its annual The Midas List, a ranking of the world's most successful venture capitalists.

The European Union is currently not ready to offer Ukraine the prospect of membership in the union, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso confirmed on Thursday. “Why didn’t the European Union offer membership to Ukraine? Because the member countries are not ready for such a step now,” RIA Novosti quotes him as saying. Barroso explained that the European Union not only believes that Ukraine is not ready for membership in the EU.

The American magazine Forbes has published a new “Midas List” - an annual ranking of the most successful venture investors on the planet. The leader of the list was Sequoia Capital partner Jim Goetz, who invested $60 million in the WhatsApp messenger. In February, the service was sold to the social network Facebook for $19 billion. Successful investments in WhatsApp allowed Goetz to move from seventh to first place in the list within a year.

photo by Fotobank/Getty Images What should Russian business pay attention to in order to stay afloat in difficult times? The Russian economy, having stepped into the Olympic year, has approached a state that can be considered stagnation. The growth rate in 2013 slowed down almost threefold, to 1.3% of GDP. Attentive observers sensed the deterioration of the situation in the middle of the year, drawing attention to the sharp increase in warehouse inventories.

The Bashneft group of companies received control over 100% of Burneftegaz LLC, which owns the rights to exploration and development of the Sorovskoye (East-Vuemsky license area) and Tortasinskoye (Tortasinsky license area) fields in the Tyumen region, the group’s press service reported on Thursday. The transaction amount exceeded $1 billion, including debt, the report notes. The deal was financed, among other things, through borrowed funds, the press service reported.

Ukraine has announced the need to increase tariffs for the transit of Russian gas; negotiations are underway on this issue, Interfax-Ukraine reports on Thursday, March 27, citing the leader of the Batkivshchyna faction, Sergei Sobolev.

Following a mission in Kiev, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reached an agreement to provide Ukraine with $14-18 billion as part of the stand by stabilization program, reported on Thursday, March 27. the organization’s press service “The mission reached a staff-level agreement with the Ukrainian authorities on an economic reform program that could be supported through a two-year stand-by loan arrangement with the IMF,” the message said.