Revold M. Entov Passes Away

Revold M. Entov was one of the first employees of HSE University, having worked here for over 30 years since its founding in 1992. His lectures on economic theory laid the groundwork for the academic training of the university’s staff members.

Born in Kiev on March 23, 1931, Revold M. Entov was the son of an aircraft engineer. At the age of ten, he survived a bombing in his hometown on June 22, 1941, the day the Great Patriotic War began. This traumatic event precipitated his family’s evacuation to Novosibirsk before their eventual return to a war-torn Ukraine. Despite these upheavals, Revold M. Entov excelled academically, passing his ninth- and tenth-grade examinations with distinction as an external student.

After school, Revold M. Entov enrolled at the Kharkov A. M. Gorky State University to study chemistry. He fondly recalled the lectures of Ilya M. Lifshitz, a renowned Soviet theoretical physicist and future academician who specialised in low-temperature physics. Revold was an ‘honours student’—a student who had achieved top grades in all his courses for at least three semesters.

In his fourth year, Revold M. Entov decided to switch his major from chemistry to economics. After graduating in 1954 with a degree in political economy, he began working in Bashkiria for three years, teaching various subjects at a technical school.

In 1957, Revold M. Entov entered the postgraduate programme at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO) of the USSR Academy of Sciences. After completing his studies, he defended his thesis in 1977 and received the degree of Doctor of Economics. Later, in 1981, he was awarded the academic title of Professor. In 1994, he became a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, specialising in global problems and international relations. While working at IMEMO, Prof. Entov led a school of researchers at the Economic Cycle Sector. Many of these researchers went on to become prominent figures in the Russian and international scientific communities, including Vladimir Avtonomov, Andrey Poletaev, Leonid Grigoriev, Mark Urnov, and Natalia Makasheva. These scholars later played significant roles in the establishment and development of HSE University.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Revold M. Entov was one of the few economists permitted to travel abroad. He was comfortable discussing a wide range of issues in modern economic literature with top scientists from the United States. Prof. Entov had a close friendship with Franco Modigliani and ‘dined with both Arrow and Paul Samuelson.’ Dale Jorgenson spoke highly of him.

Along with his own academic work, Revold M. Entov actively contributed to the dissemination of modern economic knowledge, translating publications by foreign authors into Russian for Soviet readers and creating specialised English–Russian dictionaries. He was one of four academic editors for Paul Samuelson’s textbook Economics: An Introductory Analysis, published in 1964 with the stamp ‘For Scientific Libraries.’

Revold M. Entov was a brilliant teacher. For over 40 years, he taught at Moscow State University’s Faculty of Economics, where he inspired countless students. It is difficult to list all of the students who had attended his classes or the special seminar he called ‘a seminar with in-depth study of certain problems for all fourth-year students.’ Revold M. Entov also taught at the New Economic School and the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.

Prof. Entov had worked at HSE University for more than 30 years. He was among the first employees to join HSE University in 1992, when the entire university was housed in a single room at the Institute for Economic Problems of the Transition Period on Gazetny Pereulok. His lectures on economic theory and those of Grigory Kantorovich on mathematics laid the foundation for the training of university teachers. All of the first HSE teachers attended Prof. Entov’s lectures on economic theory. He became a member of the University’s first Academic Council, one of its first Tenured Professors, and for a long time headed the Curriculum Development Council. Students of several generations remember his vivid and informative lectures within the courses Theory of Finance and Financial Markets in the Economy in Transition. For many years, Prof. Entov also lectured on the history of economic doctrines at ICEF.

The scientific works of Revold M. Entov have brought him fame as the country’s first expert in financial theory and a deep connoisseur of the history of economic thought and corporate governance. His contributions include more than 120 published works.

For a long time, Prof. Entov headed the Department of Finance Theory at HSE University’s Faculty of Economics. Since 2006, he has been the Academic Supervisor of the Laboratory for Research in Inflation and Growth at the Expert Institute, which was transformed into the Centre for Productivity Studies in 2019. Revold M. Entov was one of the people who actively supported the university’s participation in the World KLEMS initiative to analyse the sources of productivity growth. In recent years, despite his illness, Prof. Entov started working on a new topic that he was not familiar with—a topic that is now rapidly developing—the theoretical foundations of modern ideas about productivity, which goes far beyond the neoclassical paradigm. His intensive work with modern literature helped create the foundation that underlies the research programme of the Centre for Productivity Studies and the research project seminars he co-managed.

HSE University expresses its deepest condolences to the family, friends, colleagues, and students of Revold M. Entov. His passing is a tremendous loss to the professional community.

October 22