Timur Natkhov is the Head of the Laboratory for Institutional Analysis at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.

He is an economic historian with a special interest in Russian economic history of the Imperial period. He studies the formation of human capital, knowledge and technology diffusion, and sources of institutional divergence across space and time. Most of his research focuses on Eastern Europe as a laboratory of catching-up economies developing through technology adoption and often-late institutional reforms. This setting allows him to explore various interactions between the main sources of economic development — accumulation of knowledge, technological innovations, and institutional change.

He teaches World Economic History and Institutional Economics at the Higher School of Economics and at Moscow State University.