Theoretical and methodological issues. Рубрика в журнале - Economic and Social Changes: Facts, Trends, Forecast
Protectionism in Russia: new trends in the context of the import of institutions
Статья научная
The article examines the institutional aspect of state regulation of foreign economic activity in Russia. Theoretical basis of the research is the concept of “educational protectionism” by F. List, which involves the cultivation of “young industries” under the shelter of protective customs tariffs until they become competitive in domestic and foreign markets; as well as the theory of “delinking” by S. Amin, who considers protectionism as a method for the countries, which are on the periphery of the world economy, to exit the relations of unequal exchange with industrialized countries: national economic policy should be aimed at meeting the needs of domestic development, rather than promoting international competitiveness (food security, full employment, minimum wage, etc.). Such measures were a stable element of the socio-economic model of the USSR and acted as a source of capital accumulation for the development of industry and the military-industrial complex. We come to the conclusion that the mindless borrowing (transplantation) of institutions of free trade and protectionism in Russia in the 1990s, which was not accompanied by the formulation and implementation of state strategic plans for the development of the Russian economy, led to the formation of a “mutant” economic model. On the one hand, the complete abandonment of the policy of state monopoly on foreign trade led to the flooding of the domestic market with imported goods and, as a consequence, massive ruin of domestic manufacturing enterprises. On the other hand, the purpose of the fragmentary application of protectionist policy instruments was not so much to support national producers as to create a comfortable environment for the distribution of state property among a narrow group of people close to the authorities, as well as favoring monopoly capital in a number of sectors of the domestic economy.
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Russia in the epicenter of geopolitical turbulence: accumulation of global contradictions
Статья научная
The article examines the situation of Russia falling into the epicenter of geopolitical shifts in 2022, when the country found itself involved in the hybrid warfare with the Collective West. The novelty of our approach consists in reconstructing key events of the geopolitical competition of the last 15-20 years with the use of an extensive range of related concepts from various fields: economics (Trout’s mistake, neocolonialism), cybernetics (Ashby’s Law and Sedov’s Law), management (external management, hybrid warfare), synergetics (synergetic effect, system complexity), political science (security, freedom, power structure), political economy (Arrighi’s cycles of capital accumulation, global capital center, rate of return), institutionalism (shifting risks from the physical world to the social world), geography (horizontal diffusion of innovations), psychology (war of meanings, war of nerves). This made it possible to bring together many poorly compatible phenomena of different nature, synthesize the concepts used and reveal the logic behind the struggle of geopolitical players for world hegemony. To deepen the analysis, we provide our own typology of world wars and their characteristics. We prove that the special military operation in Ukraine exposed the impasse of Russia’s economic policy and consolidated other countries in a hybrid war against the United States, thereby becoming a key event in history and giving rise to a global geopolitical confrontation between the West and the Non-West. Our main conclusion is that Russia has objectively found itself in the epicenter of geopolitical turbulence, and, consequently, cannot avoid a direct collision with the Collective West; therefore, over the next 15-20 years the country will have to go through all the stages of a new hybrid world war.
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Self-Preservation Behavior: Generational Aspect
Статья научная
The purpose of the research is to identify features of self-preservation behavior in different actual generations of Russians to assess the vector of their transformation and the prospects for life expectancy dynamics. The relevance of the topic is determined by the significant lag between Russia and developed countries in terms of life expectancy, largely due to behavioral factors. The scientific novelty consists in the fact that we can adapt the Strauss-Howe generational theory to study generational characteristics of population behavior related to health. By the results of a sociological survey, we have verified the hypotheses about the nature of self-preservation behavior models of five ten-year-old actual cohorts of the population and the combined generation born before 1955 inclusive. Regarding the ratio of self-preservation behavior models of the two oldest cohorts, the paper does not confirm the formulated hypothesis, which may be due to the positive transformation of health-preservation behavior models as people became older, due to changes in health status, as well as in the population of the older cohorts due to high premature mortality in groups with the most unfavorable lifestyle. Regarding four young actual generations, the study has confirmed the hypotheses showing that favorable socio-economic and demographic conditions, anti-alcohol and anti-smoking measures of the 2000s and promotion of an active healthy lifestyle in general have a positive effect in terms of influencing the nature of self-preservation behavior of young cohorts, which indicates the possibility of influencing behavioral health factors at the stage of its formation. The positive vector of transformation of generational patterns of self-preserving behavior, especially clearly manifested in men, allows us to hope for the restoration and prolongation of the growing dynamics of the life expectancy of Russians with the probability of achieving targets in the future, provided that favorable behavioral patterns in the field of health conservation are consolidated.
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Статья научная
In this work, we show the formation and development of socio-economic studies in the northern periphery. The authors reflect the role of economic science and regional management in the development of territories with difficult natural conditions. During the time of capitalist colonization, socialist planned economy, revolutionary reform and the formation of market relations, scientific recommendations, regarding the forms of organizing production and improving the economic mechanism by the authorities, as a rule, were not received properly and on time. Nevertheless, as shown in the article, all scientific concepts and theories, despite a delay, somehow influenced (and are influencing) vital activity of the population of distant regions, but especially it influences the theory of initial capital accumulation, socialist accumulation, mobilization economy, regional organization of productive forces, economic federalism, a variety of forms of ownership and mixed economy, territorial management. Science forms the theoretical basis for objectively determined social transformations, which serves as a reference point for the accelerated development of productive forces and the growth of people's well-being. However, political activity often ends up in completely opposite positions, preferring to break existing economic relations to the detriment of public interests. On the other hand, the very socio-economic reality and various circumstances of life suggest the need to introduce new theoretical propositions into science, corresponding to the cyclical nature of the market economy, the diversity of its forms, and extreme political and economic situations. At the same time, the experience of the formation of economic
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The concept of comprehensive income in the economic theory of the state
Статья научная
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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The impact of formal and informal institutions on innovative economic development
Статья научная
Formal institutions are important elements of the institutional structure of the national innovation system. The development of legislative regulation of the Russian innovation system fits within the framework of the administrative state evolution: the growth of the scope of regulation is accompanied by an increase in the number of laws and by-laws. Although the dynamism of formal institutions is an essential condition for adapting to changing environment, it also increases uncertainty and therefore has a negative impact on actors. The analysis of the functioning of formal institutions can be conducted from two perspectives: deductive and inductive. The deductive approach is based on the analysis of the legislative regulation-associated costs and is close to the new institutional economics tradition. The inductive approach, which is used in this paper, follows original institutionalism and narrative economics scholarly tradition. The following problems associated with the functioning of formal institutions have been highlighted in the analysis of narratives about the Russian innovation system: the lack of the necessary legislation, non-complementarity and inconsistency of laws and by-laws, the imperfection of existing legislation, lack of real support for innovations in the formal creation of relevant legal acts, funds and organizations, etc. An econometric modeling of formal and informal institutions influence on the innovative development of the economy has been carried out. Significant variables have been identified including the general indicators of formal institutions and social capital. It leads to the conclusion that the improvement of formal institutions is necessary for the innovative activity development, and high social capital contributes to building trust and, therefore, promotes knowledge sharing and cooperation, which are crucial for innovation initiation.
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“Black swans” and social institutions
Статья научная
The paper considers the COVID-19 pandemic as a manifestation of an upward trend in various kinds of risks on the path of social development. Promoting the adaptive abilities of socio-economic systems becomes an urgent task. We propose to use the experience of various countries in combating the pandemic to analyze the conditions that help to respond effectively to various unforeseen challenges, which are often referred to as “black swans” in modern literature. We present a brief review of the literature that analyzes the differences between countries, which affect their economic development amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. We prove that, contrary to popular belief, the continued growth of GDP can be combined with relatively low COVID-19 mortality rates. This conclusion is based on data from 30 countries for the year 2020. We note that the share of the service sector in the economy has a significant impact on the dynamics of GDP in the context of the pandemic. We focus on the relationship between changes in GDP in 2020 and institutional circumstances. We find that it is possible to curb the decline in GDP growth rates primarily in those countries where the population trusts the government. The decline in GDP in some countries under consideration occurs against the background of relatively high information and personal freedom that contributes to a decline in the level of trust in the government in the context of the pandemic. The regression analysis confirms that almost half of the differences between countries in GDP dynamics in 2020 are negatively related to two factors: COVID-19 mortality and information freedom. If the people have no trust in the government, then the efforts it undertakes to adapt to an emergency situation may prove ineffective, and social activity can become destructive. In the future, it would be useful to compare the adaptive capacity of countries in terms of the rate of recovery of their economies after the pandemic.
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