Economic and Social Changes: Facts, Trends, Forecast @volnc-esc-en
Статьи журнала - Economic and Social Changes: Facts, Trends, Forecast
Все статьи: 1785
Статья научная
The article analyses the efficiency and economic feasibility of autonomous power supply by the example of several cogeneration plants (mini-CHPs) operating in the industrial and municipal enterprises of the Republic of Belarus. The article also focuses on some important features of the energy sector, in particular the problem of cross-subsidies and tariffs in the energy sector. The results and main economic indicators of the exploitation of a number of cogeneration plants, constructed in the Republic over the last eight years, are presented and analysed in detail. The article is based on the detailed study of the economy of each object in particular and on the comparison of the results by the parameters of economic efficiency of all of the objects under study in general. Certain disadvantages and advantages of this direction in the energy sector of the country are defined. A number of problems and tasks, revealed on the basis of a long-standing generalised experience in designing, construction and exploitation of cogeneration plants in the Republic, and requiring thorough investigation and resolution are identified.
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Economic reforms, modernization and the “special path” ideology in Russia
Статья научная
The article explores the “special path” ideology as a significant factor in Russia's economic modernization and development in the constructive context. The concept of the special path is considered within the perspective of the evolution of economics, emphasizing its differences from radical denial of universal laws. The special path is presented as a strategy for adapting institutions and policies to unique national and historical conditions, closely related to sovereignty and national interests. Research methods are based on the use of bidirectional LSTM neural networks for classifying texts of scientific articles by their ideological color and analyzing representation of bigrams in publications categorized as "special path" with the Lekta software product. The authors substantiate four main characteristics of the special path: economic sovereignty, historicism, adaptability and pragmatism. The special path is not considered to be a denial of universal laws, but rather as a way to adapt the institutional structure to national particularities. The study emphasizes the importance of considering historical context and practical experience when shaping economic policy, while criticizing attempts to mechanically adopt foreign models without consideration of national specifics. The “special path” ideology does not reject the achievements of science or the experience of reforms in other countries, but instead emphasizes the need to adapt them to the specific circumstances of Russia, including historical, institutional, and geopolitical factors. The synergy of sovereignty, historicism, flexibility, and pragmatism is seen as the foundation for developing a strategy for modernization that can ensure sustainable development in an uncertain world. China’s success in implementing this approach demonstrates its feasibility
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Статья научная
Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization provides the domestic agribusiness with a fundamentally new economic and organizational-legal business environment. The article analyzes the financial condition of agricultural organizations in the Vologda Oblast, indicates increasing acuity of the problems in the industry and identifies the economic risks for the agricultural commodity producers of the northern region in the context of Russia’s membership in WTO. It substantiates the top priority measures to improve the financial sustainability of agricultural organizations and the need for changes in the mechanism of state support for the industry.
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Статья научная
Modern research highlights the role of technological gaps and heterogeneity of innovative development in differentiating the level and pace of economic growth. This actualizes the analysis of trends in convergence and divergence of levels of innovative development of territories and the identification of special technological clubs within which regions develop convergently. The study systematizes theoretical and empirical approaches to the analysis of differentiation of economic development, understood as a result of differentiation of innovative development. A methodology has been designed to analyze the dynamics and differentiation of innovation activity of Russian enterprises over a long period of development (2010–2023 with details for 2010–2014, 2015–2018 and 2019–2023), taking into account changes in the methodology of statistical observation. An important feature of the methodology is tracking the innovative development of territories both in terms of the costs of innovation activities and the production of innovative goods, which allows using a common economic grouping of regions. The trends in regional innovative development have been identified in terms of changes in innovation activity and its differentiation within the economic groups of regions, which allowed formulating some hypotheses about the relationship between innovative and economic development of Russia’s regions; the hypotheses are to be tested in future studies
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Статья научная
The article presents some research data concerning the economic situation and social state of population in the North-West federal district regions of the RF and in the Republic of Belarus, the research conducted by ITSED RAS and Institute of Sociology NAS RB in 2009. The article contains a comparative analysis of the following: the population attitude towards political situation and economic situation in the country and in the regions, some urgent social problems, the financial and economic crisis effects on family welfare and the level of protest public mood.
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Статья научная
The article under consideration observes the results of the integrated public opinion monitoring held by ITSED RAS at the territory of 10 North-West federal district subjects, since 2005. It contains information about socioeconomic status and political moods of NWFD regions' population amid the economic crisis. The article presents index analysis which enables to summarize the situation in NWFD and also to make comparative analysis of changes in public mood of NWFD population.
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Статья научная
The article discusses the results of market reforms in the Russian economic system, and it analyzes the data of the Russian public opinion poll conducted in 2012. The results of the survey are compared with similar data of 1990. As a result, the comparison states that the Russian population does not find significant improvement of economic situation in the country, except for the elimination of the goods deficit. The article also compares the people’s assessment of Russia’s economic transformation with the statistical data on the number of economic parameters. The analysis shows that by almost all the above mentioned parameters the situation worsened or remained unchanged in comparison with the Soviet Union. Thus, the author concludes that Russia’s population as a whole, adequately assesses the results of market reforms. In addition, the article makes an attempt to answer the paradoxical question, why there is an increase in the people’s welfare, when current economic indicators are worse than those at the Soviet periodthe author proposes three sources of wealth growth: high oil and gas prices, the growth of the financial sector, and expansion of the “network society” - informal personal interactions. The article determines latent function of the network society - adaptation of the population to market economy.
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Статья научная
The problem of spatial development does not lose its relevance for large countries such as Russia and China. Single-industry towns deserve special attention. Making up a significant part of the country’s economy, they are subject to numerous risks, many of which have already been realized. In particular, the risks manifested themselves in those cities where the economy is focused on coal mining, the availability of which began significantly reducing. The aim of the work is to propose scientifically substantiated promising directions of transformation of the economy of single-industry towns specializing in coal mining. We chose Pingxiang in Jiangxi Province of China and Vorkuta in the Komi Republic of Russia as examples. The choice of the cities is conditioned by the fact that coal mining will cease in them in the next 15 years. The article retrospectively analyzes their development and investigates their current state. As a result of the work, we proposed directions for the transformation of the economy of the cities under consideration: for Pingxiang, the preservation of industrialization trends, the development of cross-border interregional cooperation between Hunan and Jiangxi provinces in terms of creating logistical infrastructure, strengthening the development of agriculture and creating green infrastructure, ensuring the development of culture and tourism, and modernizing consumption; For Vorkuta, it is the development of the following economic activities: synthesis of artificial diamonds, production of new types of products from coal, extraction of useful elements from overburden dumps, as well as the development of the R&D sector, creative industries and tourism. Scientific novelty of the work consists in substantiating strategic priorities of the development of single-industry towns based on the existing prerequisites and competitive advantages of the territory.
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Статья научная
The article is devoted to the problem of definition of organization and economic mechanisms, contributing to effective implementation of strategic priorities in tourism and recreation development at macroregion level (NWFD). The article also grounds the statement, according to which initiation of mentioned mechanisms gives essentially new possibilities for development of tourism and recreation at the level of separate municipalities and regions of NWFD. The conditions/ factors that constrain and promote mobilization of organization and economic mechanisms are considered as well; it provides recommendations on improvement of current management in tourism/ recreation sector at macroregion level.
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Economy of the region: from crisis to sustainable development
Статья научная
The article analyzes the impact of financial crisis on the economy of the Vologda region, justifies the direction of anti-crisis actions. The necessity of maximum use of small and medium businesses capabilities for way out of the crisis and, streamline of the regional economy structure are emphasized.
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Рецензия
At the new stage of Russia’s development, it becomes especially important to find solutions to urgent economic and social issues of regional development so as to ensure full economic sovereignty and decent living standards and quality of life for Russian citizens. The article discusses the issues related to increasing the role of scientific support in addressing these problems through the prism of a notable scientific and practical phenomenon - the publication of the dictionary-reference book Regional Economics in 2021; the book was prepared by a team of authors at RAS Vologda Research Center and contains the results of the 30-year work of VolRC RAS on providing scientific and practical support to regional and local authorities of the Vologda Oblast, which contributed to the development of the region’s economy, raising the standard of living and improving the quality of life. The published scientific and practical methods for solving regional demographic, economic and social problems and improving the performance of regional and local government bodies represent the main achievements of the book. The article shows that theoretical, methodological and practical solutions to topical regional issues, using the example of the Vologda Oblast, provide scientific and practical communities of other Russian regions with tools for addressing similar problems, taking into account Russia’s spatial features. We outline a number of considerations to develop the theoretical, methodological and practical base of the book so that its methods could be applied creatively in other regions of Russia.
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Ecosystems for the Sustainable Development of Local Territories: A Review of Theoretical Approaches
Статья научная
The disproportions of Russia's spatial development (shrinkage of the developed space, polarization of the settlement system, distortion of the support frame) are challenges for sustainable development and for ensuring national security. In such conditions, local territories are most vulnerable, which, if located far from the centers of resource attraction, have limited opportunities to respond to current challenges. In turn, it is at the local level that the practical implementation of the goals and objectives of sustainable development is carried out, which ultimately determines the situation at higher levels. The ecosystem approach, which assigns a significant role in this process to the participants of the territorial ecosystem and their interaction with each other and with the external environment, seems promising for the study of the sustainable development of local territories. The aim of the review is to analyze scientific discourse on the sustainable development of local territories in the context of an ecosystem approach. The work uses general scientific methods of critical analysis, comparison, generalization, grouping and classification. The information base includes Russian and foreign scientific literature on the sustainable development of individual territorial units and the ecosystem approach, as well as international and Russian regulatory documents in the field of sustainable development. The article discusses terminological features of the concepts “sustainable development”, “ecosystem approach” and “local sustainable development territories”. We reveal the intersections of the concept of sustainable development and the ecosystem approach, and the possibility of their logical combination into a single conceptual framework in relation to local territories. On the basis of generalization and systematization of scientific literature, we define the terms “sustainable development of local territories” and “ecosystem for the sustainable development of local territories”, and identify key structural and functional elements of the ecosystem for the sustainable development of local territories.
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Статья научная
Education is one of the most important factors determining the demographic transition to an equilibrium state of low fertility. Demographic transition is expressed in the tendency for demographic indicators to converge globally. This is often realized as a sequence of local equilibria, when countries and regions form convergence clubs. The study used an ordered logistic model and materials from the 1989 and 2020 censuses to estimate the influence of the initial level of education and its growth rate on the formation of regional age-specific fertility convergence clubs of urban and rural populations of post-Soviet Russia. The study confirmed the significant role of education in the demographic transition for urban and rural populations in the age groups of 15–19 and 20–24 years. The influence of education indicators on the formation of regional age-specific fertility convergence clubs is more pronounced and stable than that of factors of matrimonial behavior, ethnic composition, and gender and age structure of the population. Marginal effects of education indicators on the likelihood of regions achieving a local equilibrium in terms of age-specific fertility were assessed. It is shown that the level of education in 1989 and the rate of its growth by 2020 had a significant impact on the formation of regional age-specific fertility convergence clubs of urban and rural populations in post-Soviet Russia. Due to this impact, regions exited high-fertility clubs and anchored in low-fertility clubs.
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Education opportunities for the population in the changing socio-economic context
Статья научная
Opportunities for the people in the field of education are not just an indicator of achieved social progress, but also a factor that determines the path of future development. That is why the information about the accessibility of quality education for residents of Russia, which is on the difficult way from socialism to capitalism, is so important. Reforms in education were implemented during the whole post- Soviet period, but the most fundamental changes have occurred in recent years. The paper is based on the analysis of evolution of educational legislation in relation to each of the stages of education system, and it also uses the results of sociological research. The article shows the process of further exacerbating and institutionalization of inequality of educational opportunities for families with different incomes and places of residence. It proves that in the emerging socio-economic and institutional context the access to the full value education for a significant share of households is being increasingly restricted...
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Education options for young people from indigenous minorities of the North: regional aspect
Статья научная
The relevance of the problem considered in this article is due to the need to provide qualified personnel for investment megaprojects in the Arctic region, while preserving the traditional culture, language, and life values of indigenous peoples of the North. We use qualitative and quantitative methods of the sociological research we conducted in 2016-2017 on the territory of Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug of the Tyumen region of Russia: mass surveys of northerners, highlighting among them the indigenous peoples of the North, in-depth interviews of experts and so on. The analysis of scientific domestic and foreign literature on the subject of the study, including the study of Russian and foreign educational practices of different levels in the Arctic regions, allows us to assess the current level of training of qualified personnel for the Arctic. We substantiate possible ways to improve the system of ethno-regional education, assess the satisfaction of representatives of aboriginal ethnic groups with the system of general and professional education and its compliance with the desired future for their children. According to the results of the study, we make the following conclusions. General and professional ethno-regional education for different levels of the Arctic Zone of Russia needs long-term state and non-state support, including corporate and non-governmental support associated with the prospective modernization of its entire system. It is necessary to strengthen the interaction of universities and other educational organizations with companies that participate in neo-industrial development of the Arctic with the aim of expanding the training of specialists in the industries related to the traditional life of indigenous Northern ethnic groups. Ethno-regional education in the Arctic region should be considered on the basis of the standards adopted by UNESCO for minority groups as an inclusive education having a status different from other educational organizations, taking into account the smallness of the majority of schools in Arctic settlements and nomad camps. At the same time, it is necessary to expand the range of educational opportunities for young people who belong to the indigenous peoples of the North.
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Educational migration of school leavers from Karelia: arctic specifics
Статья научная
Studying the migration plans of school leavers is important in the context of the reproduction of the region’s human capital. The article considers youth’s educational migration plans in the case of one of the Arctic regions (Republic of Karelia). The empirical base includes data of sociological research we conducted in November 2022. A total of 3,053 students in grades 8-11 from all districts of Karelia participated in the survey. The main aim of the research is to identify migration intensions of young people, namely school leavers as a social group on the way to choose vocational education in the region or outside it, the reasons for migration moods and potential willingness to return to the area after receiving a profession in another region. We have established that migration moods differ by regions of Karelia: educational plans of the majority of schoolchildren in Petrozavodsk are oriented outside the region, and the northern (non-Arctic) region of Karelia, on the contrary, to Petrozavodsk. However, school leavers of Arctic and southern regions are also focused on studying outside the region, where the flows from the regions are usually directed to the center of their region and then to other regions. It is important to assess the potential return of graduates who leave the region: most of those who are not going to study in Karelia are also going to work there. A comparison of actual and potential outflows of eleventh-graders from the region proves that in fact every third graduate leaves. Most graduates, disposed to leave, romanticize their plans, and only one in four families financially prepare for their child’s education in another region; the rest take no concrete action. The results obtained contribute to studying youth’s migration activity in Russia’s regions that are partially included in the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation, as detailed information is limited for such territories. In practical terms, the research results can form the analytical basis for the timely development of management mechanisms to strengthen and retain youth in the Arctic regions.
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Educational strategies of students in the context of digitalization
Статья научная
Digitalization of education has a serious impact on the nature of the transformation taking place in the learning process and also on the interaction of all participants in the educational process. However, these changes have regional specifics due to uneven digitalization of Russia’s constituent entities and the peculiarities of integration of digital methods by various educational centers. At the same time, the changing meanings and values of education make it necessary to identify and describe educational strategies of modern students, as well as motivation, determining educational strategies. The study is based on the data obtained in the course of the surveys conducted by ISPR FCTAS RAS in 2021 and 2023. Arrays of three large educational centers (Moscow, Yekaterinburg and Irkutsk) were used for the article. We clarify the impact that distance learning, which had to be implemented in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, had on the educational process, and show that the accelerated process of transition to new educational practices was carried out unevenly, which reflects regional differences in the assessment of online learning formats. It is noted that students’ educational strategies are based on understanding the category of life success. Professionalism is an important component of life success for modern youth. During the data analysis, we identify two main strategies for achieving life success. The first strategy assumes high importance of intelligence as a key component in achieving success and welfare, regardless of the chosen field of activity. The second strategy involves relying on a high level of development of professional data and competencies in a chosen professional environment. Empirical data demonstrate a higher level of proficiency in basic digital skills among students in Moscow. The evaluation vector is shifted from the capital to the periphery. The same situation is observed with respect to students’ assessments of skills related to personal characteristics and safety. The obtained conclusions can become the foundation for designing and implementing tools for adjusting the management system of higher education on the path of modernization processes associated with widespread introduction of information technology.
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Effectiveness of labor market regulation in the region (case study of crisis response measures)
Статья научная
The paper analyzes public administration efficiency in the social and labor sphere. It examines main theoretical and methodological approaches to the concept of “administration effectiveness” depending on different criteria such as the status of the managed object, internal effectiveness of management, social effectiveness, achievement of the target values of indicators, the “cost-result” ratio. The author attempts to analyze a relative effectiveness of labor market management in Russia in each of the federal districts and in the regions of the Northwestern Federal District with special attention paid to the situation in the Vologda Oblast. The article gives a general description of the main crisis response measures that Russia's regions apply in an effort to reduce tensions at their labor markets: proactive training of the workers who are at risk of being dismissed; promotion of self-employment; organization of public works; promotion of employment of persons with disabilities...
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Статья научная
We make an attempt to substantiate the significance of creating institutional conditions for the development of nonprofit organizations; to this end, we identify social and economic impact of their activities on the regional economy. Using the synthesis of theoretical approaches to explaining the reasons for the emergence of the nonprofit sector (theory of interdependence and failure theory) and the results of content analysis of the projects supported by the Presidential Grants Foundation and submitted by socially oriented nonprofit organizations from the Volga Federal District, we identify directions and specify forms of leveling government failures. It was found that socially oriented nonprofit organizations focus on providing a range of services in the education system, health care and social support, which are of priority importance for the formation of people’s basic needs, which can be fulfilled by the state only to a certain limit, regardless of the territory of residence and taking into account residents’ individual needs. When assessing the effectiveness of their own work, representatives of socially oriented nonprofit organizations focus on its social significance, using mechanisms of point solutions to the current problems of the target audience. We identify the range of potential socio-economic effects from the activities of socially oriented nonprofit organization carried out on a systematic and long-term basis in the context of priority areas of their work. We emphasize that our approach, due to the formation of a unified view among economic agents (government, business, society and nonprofit organizations themselves), expands the idea of its importance for the region’s economy and may become a starting point for the creation of institutional conditions for the development of nonprofit organizations in Russia. The prospects for our future research include modeling the management system of specific regions of the Russian Federation based on the creation of institutional conditions to increase the contribution of socially oriented nonprofit organizations to the balanced development of territories.
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Effects of E-commerce on Export Trade: Spatial Panel Data Models for Regions of China
Статья научная
The primary goals of the paper are to examine the impact of e-commerce on export trade and to determine whether the level of e-commerce development has spatial spillover, siphoning, and threshold effects on export trade. The goals predetermined the choice of research methodology. This paper constructs the spatial lag model and threshold model based on the panel data of 31 China’s regions (provinces and other districts) from 2009 to 2022. The empirical results show a strong spatial autocorrelation and a robust spatial lag effect on the export trade in China. The improvement of the regional e-commerce level can directly promote the development of local export trade and has a significant positive spatial spillover effect, i.e., the improvement of the local e-commerce level can lead to the development of export trade in neighboring regions; there is no siphoning effect between provinces. According to the result of the threshold effect, there is a single-threshold effect of e-commerce on the impact of export trade, and the positive effect of different levels of e-commerce development on export trade is on an upward trend. The value of the research is a specific application of spatial regression modeling in empirical studies, and the findings provide insights for promoting the synergistic development of e-commerce and export trade
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