SOCIAL STUDIES OF ECONOMY
This branch of research is comparatively new. Though a good deal of research conducted at CISR has dealt with the economic sphere, this particular research area took shape only at the end of the 1990s. In general, the focus of the research is thešrole and peculiarities of social mechanisms in processes considered to be economic.
In the last 3-4 years, five international research projects were carried out (ašbook based on thešmaterials of research in thešIrkutsk Region was issued in 2005: "Informal Economy of Forestry: Participants, Practices, Relations'). Two international conferences were held and ašcollection of articles ('Informal Economy in Post-Soviet Space: Problems of Research and Regulation', 2003) was issued based on the materials from one of the conferences.
At present, informal regulators of economic activities and informal economy as a whole are of special interest to us.
Studies in the sphere of industrial relations, in particular dealing with the development of social partnership systems in Russia and Germany, has developed into another substantial area of research activity of CISR.