Team

Jelena Žarković

Jelena Žarković works as the director and program manager of FREN sice 2012.

Within the framework of research projects she is dealing with issues of tax and social policy and labor market issues. Some of the projects on which she worked are: Creating  a micro-simulation model of tax policy and social benefits for Serbia (FREN and University of Essex), Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia country chapters for the OECD tax and benefit model (2009, World Bank) , Simulation  of effects of the Draft Law on Social Protection on the income distribution and poverty in Serbia using  SRMOD (2010, World Bank). From inactivity to employment: Options for raising activity and employment in Serbia (FREN and Social inclusion and Poverty Reduction Unit of the Government of the Republic of Serbia), Making Work Pay in Western Balkan Countries: Evidence from Serbia and Macedonia (Regional Research Promotion Programme Western Balkans), Making a budget calculator (PRO CONCEPT in cooperation with the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia).

For professional training she stayed at George Mason University (2005, USA) and the European University Institute (2009, Italy). She participated with notable contributions in the work of a large number of domestic and international conferences.

Lara Lebedinski

Lara Lebedinski is Research Associate at the Institute of Economic Sciences in Belgrade. Lara holds a PhD from Bocconi University, Milan, Italy. Lara is a senior expert of the European Expert Network on Economics of Education. Her research is in the field of economics of education and labour economics. Lara has worked as a consultant for international organisations such as the European Traning Foundation, UNICEF, UNDP and World Bank, among others. She is currently working on the effect of in utero shocks on child development, educational outcomes of minorities and the evaluation of active labour market policies. Lara presented her research in international and national conferences.  She has been published in leading international journals such as World Development, Economics of Transition, International Journal of Manpower, Eastern European Economics and others.

Marko Vladisavljević

Marko Vladisavljević is a researcher at the FREN and Institute of Economic Sciences, Belgrade, Serbia. He recently obtained a PhD in Econometrics from the Faculty of Economics, University of Belgrade. During his career he worked as a consultant for the World bank, ILO and UN and have received numerous scholarships for academic and applied research projects. His scientific activity is mainly focused in the fields of applied labour economics, wage and income inequality, subjective well-being, and econometrics, as well as on the impact of institutional factors on these labour market outcomes. He particularly focuses on labour market dualities such as gender inequalities, public / private duality, and focuses on the region of the Western Balkans and Eastern Europe. His work often results in recommendations for decision-makers in the fields of economic and social policy, and has been used extensively by the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veteran and Social Policy of the Serbian Government; as well as Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia.  His recent work has been published in academic journals such as Labour Economics and Cambridge Journal of Economics, VOLUNTAS,  Economics of Transition and Psychological Reports, while his work has also been published in several books chapters for distinguished international publishers such as Palgrave and Springer.

Aleksandar Radivojević

Aleksandar Radivojevic works as financial and project manager at FREN. Aleksandar completed master studies at the Department of Economic policy and development in 2011 at the Faculty of Economics, University of Belgrade, where he currently attends doctoral studies. He is a project coordinator of the Executive Opinion Survey in Serbia for the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Competitiveness Report. As a researcher he is dealing woth topics such as competitiveness, circular economy, tourism development and real estate market. Prior to the current engagement, Aleksandar worked as an assistant to the general director in the construction industry based company, where he gained excellent organizational skills through management of several construction sites. He speaks English, and has medium level knowledge of Italian.