Статьи журнала - Economic and Social Changes: Facts, Trends, Forecast
Все статьи: 1587
Entrepreneurial ability assessment of the population
Статья научная
The article describes able-bodied citizens’ qualitative adjectives which from the point of entrepreneurs and the whole population view are necessary to conduct business successful. Potential entrepreneurial ability index is offered on which basis entrepreneurial ability assessment of the Vologda region population is given. Groups with potentially high entrepreneurial ability are marked out in the article.
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Статья научная
The article describes the experience gained in Ji'an County (Ji'an Prefecture-Level City, Jiangxi Province) on the implementation of policies aimed to alleviate poverty through the implementation of the “Four-One” Industry Targeted Poverty Alleviation Project including 1) “Pomelo of One Mu for One Household”, 2) “Hengjiang Grape of One Mu for One Household”,3) “One Chicken Coop for One Household”, and 4) “One Post in the Park for One Household”. It is proved that households that implement such projects can get out of poverty. The goal of the study is to help people living in poverty get out of it, and to help the poor county become richer. The author relies on the idea that is developing in modern social science and that deals with the structural poverty typical of different historical eras and economic paradigms1. In this case, the following types of structural poverty are distinguished: pre-industrial, industrial and post-industrial poverty. The preindustrial type accompanies pre-capitalist development of society...
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Статья научная
The concept of sustainable development adopted in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 was a turning point in the understanding of the importance of “natural capital”, when emphasis on ecosystem services was marked. An important step in the development of the practical use of the concept of ecosystem services was the decision, which is based on three principles: recognition of the ecosystem value; carrying out its economic assessment and the development of mechanisms accounting for these benefits. The article presents the ecological and economic assessment of water regulating function of the northern region on the basis of methodology of Yu.V. Lebedev and I.A. Neklyudov based on the evaluation of average annual growth rate of groundwater flow of forested watersheds. The region is situated in the natural zones of tundra and taiga. As for taiga forests, their precipitation joins groundwater flow during the period of summer and autumn rains. The differentiation of the value of groundwater flow is determined by the topography, forest cover, wetlands and characteristics of timber stands...
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Environmental assessment of economic growth in the northern region
Статья научная
The analysis is based on P. Victor model of green growth. From the point of view of conceptual applicability (to diagnose environmental sustainability of economic development) and availability of tools, it is the simplest, most illustrative and universal in the range of indicators. The key parameters of the presented research model are relative indicators of negative impacts on natural systems per unit of economic result. The research novelty lies in taking into account economic and environmental indicators to assess the quality of life and the degree of environmental economic development of Northern regions. Assessment results in the Komi Republic reveal a generally low level of environmental quality of the region’s economic development for 2007-2016. Some progress towards “green” growth was observed in terms of discharge of contaminated wastewater into water surface bodies; stable economic situation in the “brown” growth zone is typical for atmospheric pollutant emissions, the features if “black” growth of economic results determined the volume of formation and disposal of toxic waste of industrial enterprises...
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Статья научная
The complex debate in the recent economic literature about environmental quality in economic growth, looking for a return to long-term sustainable growth in total factor productivity, recognizing the environmental aspect of development as an imperative confirm the relevance of the research topic. The aim of the study is to provide a theoretical substantiation of environmental investment as a key factor in ensuring long-term and sustainable economic growth, an “active start” to the radical transformation of the Russian economy in accordance with the requirements of the global Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance agenda; another aim is to conduct an experimental testing of the identified scientific idea. Environmental investment is characterized as a type of responsible and transformative investment capable of generating incremental total factor productivity growth by stimulating specific green innovations. The methodology of the study included methods of identification, analysis and verification of an econometric model in the form of a system of dynamic regressions by Sh. Almon with distributed lags. Experimentally (by constructing different regressions and testing Student’s hypotheses for them, determining estimates of t-statistics) as applied to the Russian economy, we evaluated long-term and short-term responses of economic growth indicators to the volume of environmental investment (specifically, its priority focus, such as waste-free and recycling resources). The econometric model has established a long-term positive effect of environmental investments. The effect consists in protecting the integrity of natural capital and improving the condition of ecosystems, which is fundamental to maintaining the potential for economic the long-term growth. Short- and medium-term effects include creating new high-tech jobs in low CO2 sectors and restoring total factor productivity growth through green technological innovation. The main barriers to environmental investment in Russia have been identified, and the minimum necessary economic instruments to stimulate it have been developed.
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Environmental threats as a factor promoting environmental consciousness
Статья научная
The article examines changes in environmental consciousness, which depend on how environmental threats are presented and perceived in public opinion and public discourse in Russia. Using the theory of socio-cultural risks and threats, we consider the formation of the so-called environmental paradigm, which interprets environmental consciousness as part of public consciousness. Analyzing the inclusion of the environmental agenda in the domestic public and political discourse, we show show that since the 1990s Russian legislation has been guided by international documents in this area, and the Russian Federation has actively participated in all significant international environmental forums. The attack on the non-profit sector initiated by the state authorities in the 2010s significantly reduced the number of non-governmental organizations in the environmental sphere and affected the content of public discourse. The low level of awareness of the progress and content of the national project “Ecology” indicates insufficient interaction of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation with civil society institutions and representatives of local environmental initiatives. As a result, poor involvement of the population in environmental processes can potentially lead to the emergence of occasional environmental protests. The data of sociological studies show that public awareness of environmental threats is growing rather slowly and unevenly. In the overall rating of threats, environmental threats usually rank 3rd-4th, but this has a small effect on environmental behavior and on the formation of nature-saving social practices. We consider promoting environmental consciousness as a process of helping people to become more aware of anthropogenic risks and strive for a healthy ecological environment. The typological group of “responsible” individuals identified on the basis of this approach differs from the group of “indifferent” ones according to a number of socio-demographic and sociopolitical features and demonstrates weak positive dynamics.
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Essence and main components of innovation environment in higher education institutions
Статья научная
The article analyzes the studies and experience of creating innovation environment in the sphere of education, it reveals internal and external components of educational environment. It describes the present-day state of higher professional education institutions, proposes a number of conditions for the establishment of innovation educational environment in universities for the purpose of its successful development.
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Estimates of the middle class scale in the region
Статья научная
The objective to form the middle class is an acute problem in the period of social and economic modernization in Russia. Rapid growth of the middle class in the structure of society can speed up the solution of many social problems due to the high responsibility and civic awareness of its representatives. Therefore, research of the middle class scale is a priority in the studying of the social stratification of the population. In this paper the research of the middle class was based on the empirical estimates of the sociological survey of the population in the Vologda oblast which was conducted in 2010. During the work we gave a concept of “the middle class”, we represented a number of approaches which were notable for a set of criteria to estimate the middle class size. We determined an optimum set of criteria and estimated the middle class scale in the region in accordance with them and gave the social characteristics of its representatives.
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Статья научная
The global financial crisis influenced national economic systems to a variable extent. The same trends can be observed at the regional level in the Russian Federation. In this article there has been made an attempt of the analysis of the basic system-forming branches in the real sector of the Murmansk area economy in the phase of the increase of the crisis phenomena, the ways of their overcoming are also considered.
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Статья научная
The authors performed critical analysis of 26 strategic and program documents of federal and regional significance, governing the development of tourism, to allocate problems and targets of the development of tourism and risks of realization of the tourism development programs. The authors used scoring and expert evaluation methods to develop the technique, which estimates the elaboration of strategic and policy documents governing the development of tourism. The developed technique is used for evaluation of strategic and program documents of the northern regions of Russia. The guidelines for the establishment of regional tourism development programs are given.
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Estimation of the largest enterprises’ impact on the socio-economic development of territories
Статья научная
The key basic trends of modern society development are associated with the transfer of some government functions to big business. Thus, scientific and public circles argue about social partnership between government, business and employees and offer different variants of the corporate social responsibility concept. The article presents the experience to assess social responsibility of business on the example of the largest chemical enterprises located in the Vologda and Novgorod oblasts. The evaluation results have revealed a number of problems hindering the formation of socially responsible behavior of enterprises, particularly the lack of standardized reporting on corporate social responsibility; provision of formal corporate social responsibility report; business’ non-system participation in social and economic development of territories. According to the authors, the development of a special model to regulate participants’ mutual relations can increase social responsibility of Russian business. Unified interests and resources of business and government promote the development of an agreed strategy in the field of regional social-economic development.
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Статья научная
The article offers an approach for constituting various types of functions that tie economic and ecological indicators. The models based on such patterns should enable investigation of potential development scenarios in strategic planning and their comparative analysis. Calculation results based on Karelia data are presented for major types of functions offered.
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Ethnodemographic structure of immigration to Russia: possibilities of statistical analysis
Статья научная
Migration processes, unlike natural population movement, are more diverse, can be caused by different reasons and have different directions and deadlines. In this regard, the boundaries between the types of migration (and migrants) are often unclear, which complicates not only their classification, but also the choice of suitable sources for obtaining information about them. Ethnodemographic changes are taking place in modern Russia; this makes it necessary to monitor them more closely and expand approaches to their accounting. The purpose of the study is to develop proposals for the registration of immigrants based on the analysis of approaches developed in Russian and foreign practice aimed at studying and assessing the ethnodemographic characteristics of migrants. As a result of the study, we show that the most complete information about immigrants in Russia is provided by population census data, but the dynamic nature of migration flows requires additional measures related to their accounting. Current migration accounting is carried out using various forms, but the information most often remains at the level of authorized organizations and is not publicly available for analysis in the context of Russia’s regions and in the context of the countries whose citizens have arrived in Russia. Sample surveys allow us to study in more detail certain aspects of migration processes or certain categories of migrants, but their results may not always be comparable in time. We suggest the possibility of including additional data on the place of birth of the respondent’s father and mother in the population census sheets. For Russia, as well as for other countries, citizenship is an unstable feature, since migrants can become citizens of the country of residence. Requesting data on the place of birth of the respondent’s father and mother does not contradict constitutional law and helps to obtain a more clear idea concerning the ethnic and cultural roots of the individual.
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Evaluating digital ecosystems in Russia's regions
Статья научная
Successful establishment and functioning of the digital economy is possible only in an adequate digital ecosystem, but the semantic and structural content of this system has not been defined adequately yet. Such uncertainty can be found at different levels (federal, regional and local) and in various aspects: subject-related, branch, segment, technical and others. At the same time, the need to implement effective measures for the development of regional digital ecosystems requires not only an understanding of their qualitative content, but also an accurate quantitative assessment. Our paper analyzes conceptual approaches to the definition of a digital ecosystem, provides our own understanding of its full content, which allows us to build a sufficiently verifiable assessment of digital ecosystems development at the regional level. We present a technique for assessing the development of regional digital ecosystems; according to this technique two integrated indices are calculated, and on this basis we carry out an analysis on 82 constituent entities of Russia over the period of two years. The study reveals the existence of significant differentiation between the regions according to the level of development of digital ecosystems; it also helps identify a number of characteristic types of regions in this context. Our assessment has shown that, along with the majority of the regions where the development of digital ecosystems is defined as average, some regions show opposite trends. There are regions, for example, the Belgorod and Kirov oblasts, in which the conditions for the digital environment are below average, but the level of ecosystem development in them is average or higher. There are regions where the situation is the opposite, i.e. the conditions are quite high, but the level of development of the digital ecosystem as a whole leaves much to be desired. Such a negative example is the Moscow Oblast. We also identify leading regions and problem regions. We hope that a reliable assessment of development of digital ecosystems using our technique will help work out effective solutions for successful promotion of the digital economy in Russia.
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Evaluation of efficiency of the public demographic initiatives
Статья научная
The article reveals how the demographic processes in Russia are influenced by federal and regional demographic policy measures of 2006-2011 and by the national project “Health” and health care modernization programmes for 2011-2012. The author dwells upon the modern trends in the birth rate of Russia’s population, upon the changes in its structure by the age and marital status of mother. The article evaluates which actual generations have received the maximum reproductive benefit from pronatalist demographic policies, and what are the prospects concerning fertility. The article considers the dynamics of life expectancy of Russia’s population and the changes in the structure of mortality by causes.
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Статья научная
The article presents an algorithm for the management of specially protected natural areas in the region. This algorithm consists of the following procedures: assumption of the obligation to preserve biodiversity; planning and implementation of activities to preserve natural complexes; evaluation, analysis of results and development of recommendations to improve management. According to this algorithm the procedures were tested on model objects - specially protected natural territories of federal and regional importance. In the course of implementation of these activities the sources of funding of specially protected model objects were identified: the funds of budgets of all levels; grants and charitable contributions; funds received from the provision of recreation and tourism services. The financial strategies of development were provided, and the business plans were analysed for seven natural reserves. The results of a sociological survey concerning the effectiveness of implementation of business plans show that positive effects from the existence of protected areas are much more pronounced than the limitations experienced by local residents...
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Evaluation of the efficiency of regional health-preserving educational space formation
Статья научная
The article is devoted to the urgent problem of preserving children’s health. The author presents detailed characteristics of health-preserving educational space formation. It is regarded as a complex multilevel and multispectral system. The article defines the principles, methods, mechanisms of the health-preserving process on the municipal level. The subject of research includes the background, conditions and resources of health-preserving educational space formation. The participants of educational process (students, teachers, parents) and representatives of local authorities are the object of the research. The study aims to evaluate the efficiency of health-preserving educational space formation within various conceptual and methodological approachesand the degree of involvement of the municipal authorities. In the course of the experiment the author tests the method of estimating the models of regional health-preserving educational space formation and healthy lifestyle training, developed by the author. The article pays considerable attention to the justification of choosing the optimal strategy within the implementation of health preserving technologies on municipal level. It shows the crucial role of constructive inter-agency cooperation between the education system, health care and the authorities for effective and productive activities in this sphere.
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Evaluation of water bioresources management efficiency in domestic fishing industry
Статья научная
Efficient use of natural resources is an integral part of sustainable development. Resource management efficiency criteria should cover all components of sustainable development: economic, environmental and social. The purpose for the study is to assess the possibility of applying tools for measuring natural resources management efficiency in relation to water biological resources. The most developed are methodological approaches to assessing the economic efficiency of resource management. Despite the importance of environmental assessment and the availability of the methodological framework, there still remain some gaps in data availability for analyzing the impact of the fishing industry on the environment. The specific features of natural resources extraction and processing are particularly evident in indicators of environmental efficiency of resource saving. The paper substantiates the importance of taking into account emissions of water bioresources, unreported fishing, technological losses in assessing water bioresources management efficiency...
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