Economic and Social Changes: Facts, Trends, Forecast @volnc-esc-en
Journal articles - Economic and Social Changes: Facts, Trends, Forecast
All articles: 1817
The anti-crisis component of regional management: composition and instruments
Scientific article
The article characterizes the composition of anti-crisis measures implemented by authorities of the Vologda region, and also usable instruments of their implementation. The main results of changes in the socio-economic situation of the region in 2009 are shown, lines of activity providing sustainable development of the region are formed.
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The assessment of the impact of the economy's development on air pollution
Scientific article
The economic growth has a negative impact on the environment, that is why the development of models, which would reveal the influence of different factors on the change of the environment, is necessary. In order to study environmental and economic processes, a new approach was proposed, and special models, which allow assessing the impact of the investment policy and environmental activities, were created. It gives an opportunity to link the change of the environment with approved management decisions. The purpose of the article is to identify reasons that cause transformations of the interconnection between economic and environmental indicators, to study the impact of the change of environmental legislation and other external shocks on environmental and economic processes in the Russian Federation and the European Union on the example of air environment. The relevance and significance of this work is determined by changes of environmental legislation in the Russian Federation, which is currently based on the best available technologies (BAT), and the need to build models that would allow predicting the development of environmental and economic processes in changing interconnections of indicators within the emerging practice of applying new legislation. The novelty of the research is the development of models, which allow analyzing the impact of external shocks on environmental and economic processes, on the basis of the proposed approach. Empirical analysis of data was carried out, and models of environmental and economic processes were constructed. It turned out that the change of EU legislation did not lead to a sharp transformation of existing interconnections between economic and environmental indicators, which were associated with economic crises. Crises may contribute to the emergence of a new trend or just bring the system out of balance for a few years, but later its development will again be described by equations similar to pre-crisis ones. The study also allowed us to explain the improvement of environmental indicators with the growth of Russian and EU economies. Its results may be used in the development of strategic documents for the development of regions and countries. Further studies are related to the assessment of various scenarios for the development of regions of the European North of the Russian Federation.
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Scientific article
In the article the comparative analysis of the basic parameters of the scientific and technical activity in the regions of the North-West federal district of the Russian Federation and in the Republic of Belarus is carried out.
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The belt and road: achievements and prospects (to the tenth anniversary of the initiative)
Scientific article
September 7, 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed the Silk Road Economic Belt initiative in Astana (Kazakhstan), and October 3, 2013 the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road in Indonesia. The year 2023 marks the 10th anniversary of The Belt and Road Initiative, which has received positive feedback from many countries and international organizations. The Belt and Road strategy corresponds to the course of historical development and meets the expectations of all parties. The international community pays considerable attention to it. As of January 2023, China has signed more than 200 documents on cooperation with 151 countries and 32 international organizations. In ten years, The Belt and Road Initiative achieved fruitful results and brought tangible benefits to the population of the countries located along the route. Currently, cooperation within the framework of The Belt and Road project is facing the turbulence of the external environment, but its possibilities have not been exhausted. For citation: Lyu Hongying, Wang Chao (2023). The Belt and Road: Achievements and prospects (to the tenth anniversary of the Initiative). Economic and Social Changes: Facts, Trends, Forecast, 16(5), 279-293. DOI: 10.15838/esc.2023.5.89.16 In the future, it will contribute to the development of international cooperation in more areas and at a deeper level, achieving mutual benefit. The article summarizes the achievements and experience of the construction of The Belt and Road for ten years, analyzes the problems and difficulties that have arisen, and also considers new opportunities and challenges in promoting high-quality development within the framework of The Belt and Road Initiative.
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Scientific article
The territories of the Russian Arctic exhibit pronounced differentiation in their socio-economic development. Disparities are substantial both in living standards and household incomes, as well as in the material costs associated with daily life. Investigating the human capital of Arctic territories requires an integrated analysis of these dimensions. The aim of this study is to delineate the welfare boundaries of the population across the regions and municipalities of the Russian Arctic. An additional objective is to conduct an exploratory spatial analysis of dependencies in the distribution of household income levels, calculated in relation to welfare groups. The object of the study comprises five regions and thirty-two municipalities within the European part of the Russian Arctic. The data sources include findings from sociological surveys of the population conducted in these territories in 2023–2024 (n = 4,871), as well as a series of expert interviews with representatives of business, government, and non-profit organizations. The methodological framework draws upon the principles of regional and spatial economics, the theory of economic behavior, and the economics of living standards. The methodological toolkit combines sociological and econometric techniques for data processing, with spatial analysis performed using Stata and GeoDa software. The study reveals significant territorial differentiation both in the structure of population welfare groups and in the average income levels corresponding to each welfare tier. Based on principles of municipal contiguity and geographic proximity, local Moran's I index statistics were calculated for all welfare groups, and spatial dependencies in the associated income levels were identified. The most pronounced dependencies are observed within the middle-welfare group. A low income threshold for achieving this welfare level is characteristic of the White Sea coastal territories of the Republic of Karelia, whereas a high threshold is found in the Murmansk Urban Okrug and the municipal okrugs of Kolsky, Monchegorsk, and Olenegorsk. A juxtaposition of low and high income levels is recorded in Zapolyarny District of the Nenets Autonomous Area and the Urban Okrug of Naryan-Mar, as well as in the Inta Municipal Okrug and its surrounding areas.
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Scientific article
The article shows that the essential tools for managing the public and municipal finances are emerged from the organization of the budget process because this process permeates all areas of fiscal activity of public and municipal authorities. The author emphasizes that the changes in the economic, social and financial policy of the state at a particular stage of development of the country influence over the budget process. The author has focused attention on determining the place and the role of local budgets in the general system of the country's budget process. He considers some new methods in budget planning and forecasting.
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Scientific article
The possibility of application of a new Western paradigm as to the specially protected natural territories in the Extreme North of Russia is discussed in the article. It implies the combination of nature protection and neighborhood development. The author writes in brief about the new paradigm and the system of specially protected natural territories in the Murmansk Oblast. There are such problems of specially protected natural territories in the region as conflict of interest between different stakeholders, lack of support from the authorities and weak tourism infrastructure and competence in this sphere. However, the enthusiasm on the subject of local national parks and nature parks and a growing number of tourists allow us to suppose that the role of specially protected natural territories in the neighborhood development will be more significant in future.
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The competitive status of the mining company: mechanisms of formation and management
Scientific article
The essence of the competitive status of the company is considered, the specificity of influence of the basic external and internal economy factors on formation of the competitive status of the mining company is established, the factors of institutional regulation, investment attractiveness of the industry, the structure of the industry and the markets, the degrees of integration and diversification, the type and efficiency of the company's strategy are studied. The methodical approach to formation, estimation and management of the competitive status of the mining companies is offered.
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The concept of comprehensive income in the economic theory of the state
Scientific article
The article presents a concept of the comprehensive income of producers of patronized goods; the concept helped to determine the economic content of the term “budget subsidy”, which in the Russian tradition is unreasonably interpreted as gratuitous aid from a paternalistic state. We substantiate this concept and the economic meaning of budget subsidy on the basis of a modified model of the Wicksell- Lindahl equilibrium as applied to patronized goods, the distinctive feature of which consists in their ability to satisfy the interests of individuals and the government that acts on behalf of society. We prove that such a modification of the equilibrium model is based on the use of the marginal utility theory in relation to the key term in the theory of patronized goods: public interest that is not reduced to individual preferences. Such an interpretation required that the absolutization of the marginalist principle of subjectivism based on “methodological individualism” should be abandoned. The presence of a public interest that is not reduced to individual preferences, and therefore the presence of the social utility function of the paternalistic state, fundamentally changes the content of the equilibrium. This approach resulted in the development of the concept of comprehensive income, which is defined as the sum of income from market sales and budget subsidies, deflated by different price indices. In order to summarize components of comprehensive income, we present our own methodology for constructing a “composite price index”. The normative model for budget subsidy based on the assessment of the social utility of patronized goods is the most important practical result of our work. With regard to its normative nature, the article presents a theoretical substantiation of the three normative conditions and derives the corresponding equations for model calculations of the budget subsidy value, tested on the example of national and municipal theaters using actual departmental statistics for the period from 2009 to 2019.
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Scientific article
In the article, we continue to reveal the topic related to the problem of liberal ideology, which was actually established in Russia after the adoption of the Constitution of the Russian Federation in 1993, which proclaimed a ban on official state ideology (Article 13). The emphasis is placed on the empirical results of monitoring sociological research, which allow us to see the dynamics of changes in indicators of the intellectual, creative and moral level of Russian society for the period from 1996 to 2024. The study was carried out in the Vologda Region, but a comparison of the data obtained with the results of opinion polls conducted in other regions of the Russian Federation suggests the existence of identified trends in many regions of the country. The analysis has shown that, on average, over the period from 1996 to 2024, the proportion of people interested in various topics about life, such as family, culture, upbringing of younger generations, the life of the country and society, etc. decreased by 11 percentage points. The proportion of people who do not tend to engage in creative activities in everyday life has increased by 15 percentage points. The proportion of people experiencing remorse in the case of committing certain immoral acts (deception, rudeness, injustice, etc.) decreased by 8 percentage points. The generalization of expert assessments given in the article indicates that the cause of negative trends is largely the ideology of liberalism, which is based on the ideas of consumerism and money as the leading values in life, the understanding of benefit as the only driving force of social development. Special emphasis is placed on the values and behaviors of the ruling elites, who continue to adhere to the basic tenets of liberal ideology, which, in the context of the special military operation, leads to extremely negative consequences for the country and creates real threats to national security. Some of the ruling elites are still guided by liberal attitudes that contradict traditional spiritual and moral values such as justice, patriotism, and the priority of the spiritual over the material, which are contained in Presidential Decree 809 of November 9, 2022. Therefore, there is a growing need in the expert community and among the general public for a real understanding of the answer to the question “What kind of state are we building?” Our contribution lies in the analysis and interpretation of the database of sociological data accumulated from 1996 to 2024 in the context of current problems of public administration effectiveness.
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The crisis influence on economy of Karelia and opportunity of its overcoming
Scientific article
In this article the main causes of the global financial crisis and its influence on the economy of the autonomy of Karelia are presented in brief. It influences the timber industry complex, the banking area, and as a result the social sphere in Karelia’s economy. In this under-populated region the small-scale enterprises’ activity plays an important role under the circumstances of the critical situation. In this article the ways and opportunities of the overcoming the crisis by means of the invariant decisions are represented.
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The current state and specifics of small business development in Russia
Scientific article
The formation of the small business sector is one of the most promising areas of the country's socio-economic development. In this regard, assessing formation dynamics and determining the problems and areas of development of the sector is of particular relevance. The purpose for the research is to analyze the current state and identify the peculiarities of small business development in Russia. To achieve this purpose the following statistical research methods have been used: data summary and grouping, calculation of integrative indicators (absolute, relative values), construction of dynamics series. The author also used general scientific methods such as generalization, induction, analysis and synthesis, etc. Based on statistical data with the use of these methods, the author analyzed tendencies of small businesses development in the context of indicators characterizing the dynamics of a number of small enterprises and their territorial distribution, sectoral structure, employment in the small business sector, enterprise financial and economic activity, their lending, etc...
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Scientific article
The authors analyze the state of small entrepreneurship sector in the Republic of Karelia and reveal features of its development in region rural settlements. The most urgent problems of small entrepreneurship development in rural settlements having low population density are designated and the possibilities of these problems decision are considered.
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Scientific article
The successful functioning of the system of transformation of scientific and technical knowledge into a market product largely depends on the level of development of small innovative business. The organization paradigm of small innovative enterprises (SIE) in Russia does not yet correspond to the content of the modern world economy. At the same time, a serious problem is the gap between the proclamation of the need to increase the contribution of SIE to the economy and the actual practice. The relevant issues are the revitalization of the existing enterprises of this type, rather than the creation of new SIEs. To develop the support areas for their formation it is necessary to appropriately diagnose and assess the evolution of SIE in both industrial and research-educational sector of the country. This determines the relevance of the topic and the purpose of the research. During statistics analysis, data of Rosstat and HSE were supplemented with data from the Scientific Research Institute - Federal Research Centre for Projects Evaluation and Consulting Services (SRI FRCEC), as well as data from author surveys. The study reveals that the level of SIE development is insufficient to ensure economic security and does not meet the needs of the current stage of the country's economic development. It is revealed that in small enterprises, innovative activity along with financial and personnel issues, is hampered by management problems associated with the fact that the management of manufacturing process of innovative products requires a certain competence and the shift of the company's management resources from current activities. In view of this, the author proposes a model of SIE development management based on the implementation of the project management mechanism in conjunction with “SIE infrastructure”, ensuring the formation of SIE and strengthening its position in the market. We present the results of practical testing of this approach on real research objects, which provided the launch of 33 innovative projects during 2010-2017.
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Scientific article
The need to integrate volunteering into national strategies for achieving sustainable development goals, and the importance of its role in curbing the implications of crisis processes caused by the coronavirus pandemic have intensified the scientific search for barriers to civic participation in volunteering and mechanisms for eliminating them. At the same time, researchers focus on identifying barriers of a certain type on the example of one country or group of countries, and, when searching for ways to eliminate those barriers, they underestimate the role of national culture. The purpose of our study is to systematize barriers and promising technologies for intensifying the diffusion of volunteering among the population and to identify major features of national culture in this process. Barriers to the diffusion of volunteer activity in society are systematized into three groups: barriers on the part of the state, barriers on the part of the non-profit sector, and barriers on the part of the individual. We show national features of their formation, which proceed from the specifics of emergence and evolution of volunteerism in the course of socioeconomic development. Using the postulates of institutional economic theory, we identify a system of institutions that intensify the diffusion of volunteering in society, including institutions for the promotion of volunteer practices, institutions for the development of civil society, institutions for the development of horizontal ties through network mechanisms for the diffusion of norms of civic participation, institutions for improving the reputation of volunteering among the population, the institute of volunteer education, institutions for increasing the motivation of participation in volunteering. On the basis of econometric analysis, we have determined that the cultural dimensions highlighted by G. Hofstede, such as the level of individualism, femininity and tolerance, have a significant impact on the extent of development of volunteering in the country. Taking into account the identified cultural features and effective technologies that promote residents’ engagement in volunteer activities, we determine directions for intensification of this process in Russia. Development of a comprehensive system of institutions for the diffusion of volunteering in our country will be a promising area for our future research.
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Scientific article
The article considers prospects for the implementation of Presidential Decree 204 “On national goals and strategic objectives of development of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2024” dated May 7, 2018 and for the implementation of key guidelines announced by the head of state in his Address to the Federal Assembly on March 1, 2018. We considered expert assessments, analyzed the Russian President’s annual phone-in session with the nation (the “Direct Line”) held on June 7, 2018, and discussed the results of international research and all-Russian sociological surveys. All this allows us to conclude that if the composition of the Cabinet remains virtually unchanged for the next six years, it will be extremely difficult to implement ambitious plans for the internal development of the country. According to many experts, if we want to achieve breakthrough development, it is necessary to change the Government radically. This is dictated by the current geopolitical situation and the expectations of the general population. Nevertheless, at the beginning of his fourth presidential term Vladimir Putin has not taken such steps; consequently, it is unlikely that he will fulfill his election promises. It rather allows us to say that “oligarchic capitalism” will continue to dominate in the system of public administration.
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The dynamics of sanctions’ impact on the foreign trade of the Russian Far East
Scientific article
This study aims to assess the dynamic impact of "local" sanctions on the trade of the Russian Far East. It shows that the "local" sanctions (2014–2021) were comprehensive and open-ended, heightening the risks of bilateral interactions between Russia and both the sanctioning and the sanctioned countries – a pattern that became evident in the Russian Far East. A delayed, increasingly negative impact of sanctions on the region's trade was identified. The direct restraining effect of foreign sanctions was found to have grown from 38.6% in 2017 to 64.3% in 2021, while the effect of Russian sanctions against foreign countries rose from 50.0% in 2018 to 58.5% in 2021. The globalization effect was found to have mitigated the negative influence of the sanctions on the trade of the macro-region under study. In terms of the tariff equivalent, the stimulating effect of globalization on the Far East's trade in 2021 proved to be nearly half as strong in the case of the negative impact of Russian sanctions against foreign countries as it was in the opposite case. The globalization effect, however, was unable to reverse the mounting trend of the restraining influence of the sanctions on the macro-region's trade with the sanctioning and the sanctioned countries. As a result, the overall effect of foreign sanctions against Russia contributed to a 27.4% reduction in the Far East's trade volume with those economies in 2017 and a 54.0% reduction in 2021, whereas the effect of Russian sanctions against foreign countries produced a reduction of 42.4% in 2018 and 52.1% in 2021. It is suggested that the rise in the positive globalization effect may be accounted for by the specific nature of the Far East's trade with Japan, which, despite the sanctions, remained a close and one of the largest markets for the macro-region, owing to its investment participation in regional projects. The study points to a delayed, disproportionate increase in the risks of trade and economic interactions under the conditions of comprehensive sanctions confrontation between countries, including at the regional level.
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The effectiveness of livestock farming mechanization
Scientific article
The article deals with the economic analysis of the current state of milk production in Russia in comparison with the developed countries. The possibility of efficient milk production due to the advanced production technology and the methods of cow maintenance and milking are considered in the case of “Livestock Breeding Farm under the name of 50 Years of the USSR”, which is located in the Gryazovets District of the Vologda Oblast.
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Scientific article
The qualitative changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic at all levels of the organization of the world community (individual, group, national, global) have actually formed a new social reality. Moreover, this process was of a force majeure nature; it took place in the conditions of a sharp increase in the uncertainty feeling, changes in the lifestyle of almost every person and every particular family, the unpreparedness of world medicine for an adequate response to the global epidemiological challenge, as well as the inevitability of large-scale problems in the economy and politics. The current conditions have become a challenge for the existing systems of public administration. The governments of different countries had to act quickly and decisively in order, on the one hand, to keep the development of the epidemiological situation under control, and on the other hand, to prevent a sharp deterioration of social stability against the background of objectively emerging epidemiological, social and psychological challenges. While the world medicine was urgently accelerating the development of a vaccine against coronavirus infection, the scientific and political community discussed the general strategy for implementing quarantine restrictions. However, against this background, the local community level remained virtually behind the scenes, which, nevertheless, was and still remains the most practical in terms of interaction of population with the authorities. It is at the local level (meaning the regional level, as well as the level of local selfgovernment) that the authorities are more close to the society problems, have the opportunity to interact face-to-face with its representatives, and the population, in turn, can actually participate in activities to improve living conditions (including solving problems caused by the pandemic). The article presents the experience of Russia and China in organizing interaction and evaluating the activities of local authorities by the population. Both countries have shown high efficiency in overcoming the crisis in 2020-2021, so their experience is of considerable interest, primarily in practical terms. The authors of the study have concluded about the importance of public assessment regarding the effectiveness of the activities of local authorities, as well as the prospects for actively involving citizens in solving problems arising against the background of force majeure.
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