Theoretical issues. Рубрика в журнале - Economic and Social Changes: Facts, Trends, Forecast
Public administration quality: assessment criteria in comparative territorial frames
Статья научная
The purpose of the article is to generalize, systematize and develop a number of key theories and concepts of public administration efficiency and quality. The author classifies and criticizes the conceptual framework of the study and evaluates the efficiency and quality of public administration. It has been found out that the traditional “functionalist” approaches based on assessment of the achieved socially significant results or economic growth are important, especially in the context of using the program-target method of administration, yet insufficient. The novelty of the research is that in contrast to the authors proposing assessments based on trivial indicators of regions' socio-economic development, the author substantiates the importance of using the complex approach in assessing the effectiveness/ quality of public administration, which helps consider not only the “effectiveness”, but also the quality of procedural mechanisms of public administration (autonomy of the executive power in choosing mechanisms of the implementation of identified policy goals; level of transparency and objectivity of mechanisms of selection and job promotion, professionalization of government employees)...
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Random and regular stock price change depending on a time span
Статья научная
The purpose for the research is to identify the correlation between random (accidental) stock price changes and its well-known tendency to grow depending on a time span. In contrast to the works of other scholars on the issue of the random nature of stock prices the presentation of the issue is new in the current research. The research method consisted of identifying the criterion stock price change separation into random and regular components and further comparing the proportions between random and regular stock price change on the example of 10 stocks of the largest world-known companies from representing different economic sectors traded on New York stock exchange for several time spans: one day, week, month, quarter, half-year and one year. The main research results suggest that with the increase in time span the share of the regular origin of the stock price increases, but only up to a certain significant limit. The increase in the time period of analyzing the stock price changes (fluctuations) does not prove that the random character of stock price change has an unlimited downward trend...
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Reflections on the concept “crisis”
Статья научная
In the preface to the book “The Crisis of Our Age” its author Pitirim Aleksandrovich Sorokin argues that “every important aspect of the life, organization and the culture of Western society is in extraordinary crisis”. And he continues his words of prophecy: “Its body and mind are sick and there is hardly a spot on its body which is not sore” [Sorokin, 1948 (1942): 7]. Sorokin, of course, was not the only one who perceived their modernity as being in a crisis. T.G. Masaryk wrote about many aspects of the “crisis” of his time in the late 19th century. Georg Simmel studied the crisis of culture in the beginning of the 20th century [Simmel, 1983]; Sigmund Freud warned about the dangerous potential of human destructiveness, Oswald Spengler announced the “decline of the West” [Spengler, 2011], and Joseph Alois Schumpeter argued that cyclical manifestations of economic crises1 relate to the economy like heartbeat to a living organism. While Adolf Hitler was consolidating his power, Edmund Husserl [Husserl, 1972] lectured on “the crisis of the European Sciences”, and Georges Friedmann spoke about the “crisis of progress” [Friedmann, 1937]...
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Return on equity as an economic growth driver
Статья научная
The article presents a simple model of economic growth based on the description of the dynamics of fixed capital formation. The main characteristic of the obtained fundamental equation of economic growth consists in an explicit link between the indicators of the GDP growth rate and the level of return on equity which allows not only obtaining the T. Piketty inequality, but also strictly determining the conditions for its implementation. The peculiarity of the fundamental equation of economic growth is in the postulation of the primacy of the capital circulation process which can provide an economic growth regime under certain conditions. The main difference between the author’s model and earlier constructions is the aggregation of most growth factors into one parameter. It is the profit rate (return on equity) which acts as the main driver of economic expansion. To strengthen the explanatory power of the fundamental equation of economic growth, the author considers two economic sectors - ordinary (with a low return on equity) and special (with a very high return on equity). This approach allows dividing the economic growth regime into early and mature stages which differ radically in the values of the macroeconomic parameters. The article shows that the early stage is typical for the period of the economy’s exit from the Malthusian trap and the transition from the industrial depression to sustainable growth. Experimental calculations based on the model proves that, in order to overcome the poverty trap, it is necessary to have a special sector in the national economy with the annual return on equity of hundreds percent. This result is consistent with the available historical data on the profitability of economic operations at a critical development stage - the change of the feudal system intto the capitalist one. The calculations also demonstrate that, for the mature stage of economic growth, such high requirements for business profitability are not imposed, and the thesis about the need for a special sector loses its significance. Moreover, the fundamental equation of economic growth allows outlining the final stage contours of the capitalist management mode.
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Social capital: problem field and empirical research
Статья научная
The article analyzes the concept of social capital as a successful metaphor that covers a whole range of relations that can affect the success or failure of activities of an individual, small groups, organizations, enterprises, society, and finally, interstate associations and unions. We show that the study of social capital is accompanied by relentless disputes about the essence of the concept; there are supporters and opponents of its legitimacy and rationality of use in scientific analysis. Despite the controversy, both proponents and critics of social capital note the productivity of the use of this concept, which is a complex social phenomenon that requires in-depth study. Social capital is considered in relation to the scale of those objects whose part it is and in relation to which it operates at the micro-, meso-, macro- and meta-levels. Social capital gives benefits on any of these levels and is fixed in economic, political, and cultural advantage. A component of social capital, as shown by the Polish sociologist P. Sztompka, is a moral capital that helps build relationships based on trust, loyalty, reciprocity, solidarity, respect, and justice. Embedding moral capital in the culture of society creates a solid foundation for the relations that contribute to the development in one or another area and to the progress of the whole society. Acting according to moral rules can mitigate the existing injustice in the distribution of social capital. A good example of the use of the concept of social capital is provided by a study carried out at Vologda Research Center on the basis of an indicator model. The connection of social capital with the socio-cultural and economic development of the territories is shown, the actual problems of the spread of social capital beyond the small, near circles of interaction are revealed. Addressing these problems is an urgent political and social task; it will help increase solidarity in society, overcome the alienation of the population from power, and create and strengthen mutual trust between them.
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Socio-economic differentiation of space: inconsistencies between the theory and regulation practice
Статья научная
The article notes the inconsistency between significant efforts aimed at resolving the differentiation issue of the social-economic development and low effectiveness of countries, regions. The article analyzes the theories relating to the subject matter of asymmetric development and current reality. The author argues that the modern economic theory leaves unanswered the question concerning the possibilities to eliminate the issue of inequalities within the existing world order, which can potentially result in social tensions and conflicts. The article notes the specifics of the Russian research experience with regard to the socio-economic differentiation: great number of scientific works, extrinsic interest of the management system, lack of theoretical development, research bias. The criticism of the basic research and regulation postulates of the differentiation in Russia allowed determining the main problem - the necessity to develop the quantitative analysis of the differentiation issue.
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Статья научная
Modern studies consider the issues of spatial development of territories from different theoretical-methodological and scientific-practical positions. At the same time, scientific literature pays increased attention to clusters as tools of development of socio-economic space in regions and countries. The review of relevant literature that we have carried out shows that foreign studies on clusters focus more on determining the success factors of clusters and on the development of state programs to support them. While Russian scientific literature mainly tackles the issue of developing methodological foundations and techniques for identifying and assessing clusters for the purpose of developing the cluster potential of territories. Moreover, if we consider world's best practices of cluster development, we see that in many works of Russian and foreign researchers on identifying clusters their effectiveness as highly organized self-developing systems is postulated and not subjected to thorough consideration...
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Systemic crisis and the choice of the way of development for Russia
Статья научная
The article considers the reasons that led to the systemic crisis in the modern Russian economy, and highlights major factors that impede the transition to the innovation type of the country’s development. The article pays special attention to the losses caused by a comprador nature of the current economic system, and in particular - by its modification focused on export and raw materials. Besides, the article substantiates the author’s viewpoint that at present our country needs an economic system, which is ready for a new and comprehensive industrialization.
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The evolution of demographic and social construction of the age of "old age"
Статья научная
In the 21st century, global demographic system is in the transition from the stage of demographic dividend implementation to population ageing. A global trend of the age structure transformation is a new, by the history’s standards, phenomenon. Reasons and mechanisms of its emergence are revealed and empirically confirmed. However, the issue of the population ageing’s consequences, which do not have universal mechanisms of formation and differ according to a territorial basis, remains relevant. The reason of differences is not only about socio-economic parameters of countries, which determine the potential to overcome the consequences of demographic ageing, but also about the lack of a common understanding of the “old age” and the correlation between the demographic basis of its construction and the social perception of this category. Population ageing and ageing society are manifestations of the age structure transformation, which have common reasons of emergence, but they are conceptually different in defining the age of the “old age”. Thus, the purpose of this work is to identify and systematize the evolutionary features of demographic and social construction of the age of the “old age”. The article consists of two main parts: the analysis of existing approaches to constructing the age of the population’s demographic “old age” and features of the transformation of public perception of elderly population in different historical epochs (social construction of the studied category). The main conclusion of the study is that within global, irreversible (with a narrowed reproduction) ageing of the population and demographic beta-convergence, the construction of the age of the “old age” gradually moves into the social area. Societies restructure the concept of the old age not only through the prism of increasing life expectancy (including healthy), but also through awareness of the increasing role of the older generation in maintaining sustainable rates of the socio-economic development. On this background, the main task of “ageing” states is to overcome the persistent (albeit on a less significant scale) manifestations of age discrimination against older citizens.
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The successfulness of a modern individual: theoretical and methodological aspects of the study
Статья научная
The article discusses theoretical foundations of understanding success, substantiates methodological approaches to studying the successfulness of the 20th century individual, and discusses findings of an exploratory research conducted by an international team of scientists. We consider it important to study the social phenomenon such as “succesfulness of a modern individual” in the context of their satisfaction with important aspects of life and work and from the perspective of a wide range of socio-cultural, socio-psychological and demographic determinants. The study uses methods developed in various fields of social and humanitarian science; the methods describe the phenomenon1 of success in a meaningful way and identify its prevalence and manifestation features in different countries (in this project - Russia, Poland and Belarus) and in specific groups within countries. An exploratory research performed in this way has an interdisciplinary basis and relies on the synthesis of econometric (modeling, correlation and regression analysis), sociological (questionnaire survey), and psychological (testing) methods. The article presents findings of a pilot sociological survey and psychological testing of the population of different cities of Russia (Vologda, Cherepovets, Petrozavodsk, Kolomna), Belarus (Minsk) and Poland (Lublin). The pilot stage of the comparative cross-country study involved empirical testing of the selected tools in determining success factors in different linguistic, cultural and political environments, searching for methodological approaches to the essence of the phenomenon under consideration, and the operationalization of the concepts used. Successfulness2 has been studied in terms of self-esteem and in relation to life satisfaction. The study covered main spheres and conditions of human life. We tested relevant hypotheses that we had confirmed in the course of regional studies. The scientific significance and novelty of the research lies in the exploratory nature of the project, an attempt to solve a scientific problem by integrating knowledge and methods from various scientific fields. The findings of the study, its conclusions and models can become the basis for the development of a full-fledged concept of “modern successful individual”.
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Статья научная
The research is aimed at developing theoretical aspects of the latent category “social comfort”, searching for new assessment methods and opportunities for using various types of information resources (big data, continuous and sample population surveys, state and administrative statistics). Development of the axiomatics of a new category and its modeling are necessary to determine a real level of population's well-being in dynamics, to assess true quality of people's life. The purpose of the research is aimed at development of theoretical and methodological foundations of social comfort as a latent category in the discourse of social processes and the test of its assessment using the method of generalized principal components. The main results of the study include the clarification of connotations and development of axiomatics for the new category “social comfort”; systematization of relevant international surveys, and the formation of reliable categories that ensure the validity of the results; assessment of the level of social comfort using the method of generalized principal components for a space-time sample - the STATIS method. The peculiarity of the method, used for space-time sampling, is an opportunity to simultaneously study object-feature matrices, related to different time points, and the identification of the parameters that mostly determine the scattering of observation objects: in our case, the regions of the Russian Federation, on a plane of main components of the generalized (compromise) space. The scientific novelty of the research is development of the axiomatics of the new category “social comfort”, which allows measuring and studying a person from the point of view of his inclusion in society, semantic correlation of various types of activity with time and external situation, expanding the subjective aspect of measuring the quality of life as one of the most important categories of social and economic science; the formation of new approaches to modeling and evaluating social comfort. The study is of practical interest to researchers, and its results may be used for creating socio-economic development programs in Russian regions.
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Статья научная
The article raises the issues of motivation in the context of individual approaches (Freudian, behavioral, cognitive-psychological, etc.) in the framework of theoretical-personal and theoretical-associative fields. The goals of the article are as follows: to structure the main existing approaches to the study of motivation, and to determine the provisions that can be used in the framework of the motivation for people’s creative labor activity. The study used general logical methods and techniques, such as system approach, generalization, analysis, and synthesis. We conclude that the main source of people’s activity is need-based tension, and the aim is to eliminate it using external incentive factors. We show that the nature of behavior will be determined by the degree of consistency between different groups of motives, correlation of motives and external goals, and in the absence of such coordination - by volitional mechanisms of regulation. We point out that scientific literature contains no unambiguous definition of motivational-stimulating mechanism; the paper provides its interpretation from the standpoint of behavioral approach and A.N...
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Статья научная
The article presents the author's point of view on the formation of the mixed (convergent, double-track) model of socio-economic and community development in the Russian Federation - as inherent in the federal state with multinational population, open space, and diversified economic orders determined by historical and national-cultural traditions. The author's stance is based on the wildly discussed and debated thesis about the necessity of organic combination of primary state regulation of macroeconomic processes with predominant market self-regulation of microeconomic processes. The framework of the mixed model of socio-economic and community development presupposes more active and effective use of the “point” state regulation in the creation of favorable and equal conditions for the systematic development of all forms (private, with public participation) of business and the expansion of the “corridor of opportunities” for the spatial development of all regions and the improvement of quality and standard of living of the Russian population (regardless of place of residence and position). The article substantiates theoretical and methodological possibility of successful implementation of the mixed model in the Russian Federation.
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Trends and prospects in sociodemographic dynamics of Russia: philosophical and economical approach
Статья научная
The study is aimed at analyzing the long-term historical dynamics of sociodemographic processes in Russia over the period of 500 years and elaborating the directions for overcoming the current sociodemographic crisis. The novelty of the research consists of considering cyclic sociodemographic processes with a significant horizon period (half a millennium), and studying the impact of government regulations in the country starting from the “the Time of Troubles”, through the reforms of 1861, the revolution of 1917 and the transformation of 1991, on demographic bifurcations. The authors introduce the statistical information regarding the population of Russia from 1500 to the present moment; the researchers propose to use the philosophical and economical approach (the theory of population economy) analyzing the population problems based on the theory of economy's philosophy and the theory of economy by S.N. Bulgakov and Yu.M. Osipov, the professors from the Lomonosov Moscow State University; and by 2025 to elaborate and adopt the social doctrine of the Russian Federation. Using the historical material the authors prove that the mechanisms and institutions of state regulation in the country can create conditions affecting the change of the population's reproductive behavior. The article presents the comparative analysis of the proposed theory of “population economy” and traditional ones of economic demography and population economics, and describes the main postulates of the theory of “population economy”. The researchers mark the factors that should be taken into account in composing the social doctrine of the Russian Federation. The research results can be used for justifying the long-term strategy of the sociodemographic policy in Russia.
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“Live and learn”: conceptual discourse on people's financial literacy
Статья научная
In modern social reality, well-being of individuals, including their financial well-being, is increasingly becoming a zone of personal responsibility. At the same time, in the Russian context, the majority of people remain almost entirely dependent on wages as the only source of income. This fact, along with a low level of financial literacy, is an actual risk for individuals and the financial system of the country. Consequently, the importance of adequate financial knowledge, skills and actions within the financial education and training system is increasing. This brings to the fore the task of revealing “weak spots” in financial literacy and identifying vulnerable population groups so as to develop effective management decisions; this can be done with the help of well-elaborated tools used to study financial literacy. The goal of our paper is to carry out critical analysis of available theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of people's financial literacy...
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