The evolution of the socio-economic systems is a non-linear process and it contains periods with smooth changes and subsequent periods of sharp jump transformation. The general design of new prospects opens at a stage of the birth of evolutionary processes; their forecasting requires the analysis of the historical prerequisites and risks, which are closely integrated to the change of moods in society. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the newly independent states have passed the transformational and evolutional stage of development from the regional economy (they actually were the regions) to the economy of the state; the Central and Eastern European countries have experienced a dramatic “drift” to the European Union. In the article, the results of almost 25 years’ transformation of these states are considered. New states, formed as a result of the collapse of the USSR, passed throughout three types of transformation. Firstly, it is the transformation at the ideological level. The transformation of the second type was purely economic. The third type can be characterized as the institutional (including structural and financial) transformation. It is shown that one of the important reasons for the modest economic performance in the post-Soviet space is that newly independent states ignore and do not use in the practice the principles of regional policy and regional modernization. One of the important characteristic of the social and economic evolution of the countries of Eastern Europe after 1990 became the process of stratification and social differentiation of society with an insufficiently strong middle class and the polarization in income levels between the different regions. The increasing polarization in the income levels of the various regions acts as the dominating trend of the growing economic inequality.

The article is devoted to the relevant problem, i.e. the evaluation of the investment attractiveness of renewable natural resources in the underdeveloped Northern and Arctic territories. Economic interaction arising from the development of natural resource potential is the subject-matter of the study. The development of the methodological tools for the assessment of investment attractiveness for business and authorities is the purpose of the study. For the zoning of territories at the pre-investment project stage typical landscapes were selected and assessed by each type of renewable natural resources. On the basis of the analysis of the existing approaches to the zoning of natural resources, three types of landscapes were defined: the investment-attractive ones, the investment-attractive ones with some restrictions and the investment unattractive ones. During the study, the following hypothesis was confirmed: the selection of the most valuable natural resources increases the opportunities of their development. The investment attractiveness is determined by the advantages of geographical location, development of regional infrastructure, natural potential which is considered as a priority investment target. The need for the valuation of the natural resource potential of landscape areas within the boundaries of the assessed area is justified. The limitations are the low level of infrastructure development, insufficient resistance of landscapes to anthropogenic influence, the export of raw materials for recycling from the territories. The list of conditions that demand the introduction of correction factors to the cost parameters of the natural resource potential of landscape areas is justified. The main results of the research are presented in the form of the landscape zoning of the territory and as the developed methodological tools for assessing the investment attractiveness. The testing is conducted on the example of the Berezovsky municipal district of Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug — Yugra.

In the article, the theoretical and economic aspects of the category “security” are considered; the distinction between philosophical and socio-economic approaches to the understanding of social security is drawn. From the point of view of the system approach, the place of social security for national security protection is determined. The theoretical content of the category “social security” is shown; in the authors’ treatment, the specifying concepts such as “social risks”, “danger”, “threat” are given. For the purpose of risks identification (deviations) and the revealing of the factors of inefficient financing, the methodological tools for the assessment of the social security of a region are proposed. These tools are based on the integrated assessment of the regional socio-economic indexes and the indexes assessing the budgetary financing of the territory. The methodical approach offered by the authors is based on the detection of dependencies between the social and financial security of a region. As estimates, the indicators reflecting the level of social security in the territory of residence are chosen: income, expenses of the consolidated budget of a region, growth rate of gross regional product, rate of natural population growth, level of unemployment, population share with the income below living level. This approach is approved on the example of Perm Krai and Sverdlovsk region; the regularities, the favourable and adverse periods for social security of the region are revealed. The received estimates are ranged depending on a temporary log of growth (fall), elasticity and sensitivity to the budget financing. The results of the assessment have shown that, from the point of view of social security protection, Perm Krai has entered a stage of deep recession, which started in 2012. Similar tendencies are observed in the Sverdlovsk region. Nevertheless, considering both a visible variety and the dominating influence of Perm Krai and Sverdlovsk region on the social and economic development of the Volga and Ural Federal Districts respectively, the given comparison is of scientific and practical interest.

The aim of the article is to study the paradigm of regional development, the importance and the need to integrate social components in the assessment of the level of socio-economic security of the region. The analysis of regional development theory shows that the evolution of the region’s theory moves in the direction of increasing the role of the society and factors of economic development. This correlates with the concept of the present study which increases the role of the society from the previously adopted subsystem in the economic security system to the equivalent of the social component in the socio-economic security. Often prevailing “economic” approach to solving the problems of social and economic security of a region is undoubtedly justified by the crucial importance of the economy for the territories. The threshold and critical values of certain indicators of socioeconomic security, beyond which destructive processes threaten the economy and the society, are analyzed. The authors note that achieving of the threshold values of security indicators demonstrates the need for immediate intervention by the authorities to overcome the undesirable tendencies. The basic methodological approaches to modeling and forecasting the socio-economic security of the region are systematized. The authors prove that it has to occur in an integrated manner, i.e. with the analysis and accounting of all aspects of the scope of the research, as well as in systematic manner taking into account the interrelations and interdependence of regional development. At the end of the research, a conclusion is formulated: the reasonable set of methods and opportunity to adapt them in short terms for new tasks in the conditions of a quickly changing environment of regions are necessary for the solution of various tasks of the analysis and the evaluation of socio-economic security.

This article describes the issues of the influence of world economy on the development of regional processes. The nature of the dependence of the modern domestic economy on the trends of the world raw material markets is considered. The heterogeneity of the regional processes to the changes of the world environment indicators is revealed. The channels of the influence of the world market trends changes on the regional processes are investigated. The analysis of the world economy indicators has allowed to create a system of basic indicators whose change reflects the tendencies of the world economy. The offered methodological approach to the assessment of the reaction of the regional processes to the changes in the world market trends is based on the economic cycle concept. The methodological tools include the maps of the time shifts allowing to define the time lag of the retardation of the reaction of certain regional processes to the changes in world economy; the model of the evaluation of the influence of the world economy indicators on the regional process, based on the correlation analysis; the differential matrix of the reactions of regional processes to the changes in world market trends, which enables to group them according to the reaction speed and its value. The authors present the fundamental recommendations for the regional processes management based on the world market dynamics analysis. The approbation of the methodological tools was carried out in the terms of the “Consumer prices level changes” and covered the regional process across 83 regions of Russia. They were classified by the speed and the value of the reaction of the consumer prices level to the changes of world market trends. The research has determined the factors and time limits for necessary involvement of regional authorities into the regulation of the consumer prices level. The selection of the implemented method of the direct and indirect regulation of the consumer prices level is substantiated. The developed methodological approach can be applied for the substantiation of preventive management decisions at the regional level.

In the last decades the growth of the tourism industry in Russia has slowed down, and its lack of competitiveness has been the topic of various publications. Similarly, the touristic potential of the Republic of Bashkortostan is not exhausted with tourism still making an unsatisfactory contribution to the GRP of the region. Bashkortostan and Saxony are of the same size — in terms of population. Population density, however, is much higher in Saxony. In addition, differing historic roots affect any efforts to develop the touristic potential of Bashkortostan. It is then the goal of this paper to provide recommendations for sustainable tourism with a long-term perspective by analyzing consequences of these facts on the touristic infrastructure, on competitive forces, on the tasks of a tourism-marketing bureau, among others — always in comparison to the situation in Saxony (the case study method). Thus, this comparative analysis helps to restructure tourism in Bashkortostan in a situation with insufficient reliable touristic data. In the conditions of deceleration of global economic growth, depletion of natural resources, it is highly important to secure proper functioning of economic systems by means of using the available potential possibilities and searching for new reserves of economic growth. Tourism has a huge potential of development and can be an additional source of economic growth in Bashkortostan.

The purpose of this article is to study the processes of regional integration and its particular features in the frame of the Eurasian Economic Union formation and their impact on the development of transnational corporations in the region. The authors used the scientific and methodological basis including an integrated approach and economic, institutional and organizational methods, theoretical and methodological studies of domestic and foreign scientists. In order to achieve the defined aim of this research, the authors used the retrospective method and method of comparative analysis, studied the statistical data, including the reports of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and the World Bank’s ratings. The authors studied the historical background of the Eurasian Economic Union, analyzed the current economic situation in its Member States, and considered the experience of other regional alliances. According to the results of the research, the authors formulated the conclusions in the context of the most likely prospects for the development of transnational corporations in the frame of the integration of the Member States of the Eurasian Economic Union. In particular, the study of the experience of other regional associations presumes that the process of regional economic integration will have a positive impact on the dynamics of the attraction of foreign direct investment inflows in the region. In addition, regional integration will mitigate the problem of “limited” markets of the Member States of the Economic Union and, therefore, will help to increase the amount of investment resources in the manufacturing industry and services sector of the economy. The creation of the common energy markets in the framework of the new regional association would strengthen the resource-oriented domestic large-scale business and prepare the groundwork for the emergence of new transnational corporations, cooperating within the Eurasian Economic Union. The research results can be applied in theory as a basis for the further studies of regional economic integration in the frame of the Eurasian Economic Union. Besides this, the analytical results of the research are of practical importance because they can be used for the purpose of the further development of the Eurasian Economic Union and harmonization of legislation of the Member States.

The aim of the study is to identify regions with the highest dependence on imports and assess the impact of imports on the dynamics of the manufacturing industry’s growth. The methodological framework of the study involves the use of well-known processing methods of regional static data. The paper presents an empirical study of imports volume and structure in the regional manufacturing industry for the period from 2005 to 2014, and groups them on the basis of the assessment of sustainability indicators. At the regional level, intermediate imports are characterized by a high heterogeneity both in absolute and relative terms. The significant volumes of imports are concentrated in few regions with a high industrial concentration. It allows to allocate regions with the greatest risks for the manufacturing sector in negative external environment. The study demonstrates the relationship of the intermediate imports with the growth dynamics of the manufacturing industry in a certain set of macroeconomic conditions, assuming the economic growth with the stable exchange rate and relatively high growth rate of the producer prices on the domestic market. We also found a positive impact of imports on the growth rate of manufacturing industry in this period due to the effects of market substitution. Thus, the limitation of import substitution in specialized regions at preservation of the basic external factors is emphasized. The obtained results can be used for strategic planning at various levels of management, defining the model and direction for growth of the industrial sector of the region and improving the methodological tools for further empirical research.

The main objective of the article is to study the concepts of “New Normal”, “New Industrialization” and the questions of formation and development of the productions of the fifth and sixth technological modes in the regional economic area. Substantive expansion of “New Normal” concept was argued, it became popular during the global financial and economic crisis of 2008. The logic of transformation to a “New Normal” is true not only for the world economy, individual countries and regions, but also for the Sverdlovsk region. The scientific hypothesis of the article consists in the identifying the characteristics of “New Normal” at the regional level and showing the possible directions of transformation from a «New Normal” situation using the concept of new industrialization for the regional economy. The main features of “New Normal” in the region were identified and analyzed. There are, for example, the slow growth of industrial production, the reducing of the investment climate, the low dynamics of metal prices. It is proved that the realization of the concept of new industrialization in the region can become the most attractive answer to the challenges of «New Normal». The need for the integration of the processes of new industrialization with the formation and development of the productions of the fifth and sixth technological waves is proved. The article is focused on the possibility of the transformation of the Sverdlovsk region in the region of the technological breakthrough of the 21st century. It is demonstrated that during 15–20 years, the priority will be the development of the productions of the fifth and sixth technological waves that will be based on the high-tech production of military-industrial complex, nuclear energy as well as nanotechnology and nanomaterials. It is proved that at this time, the model of innovative development of the region may be realized. It is able to lead the regional economy out of the labyrinth of “New Normal” and to move it to a new growth path.

The article deals with the sociological assessment of the skills level and identification of its influence on some aspects of labour activity: the realization of labour potential, choice of the scope of activity, position and occupation. It suggests an approach based on the subjective evaluation of the population as an instrument of the skills level assessment. The received results are compared with the indirect estimates allowing to characterize some particular components of labour potential which are similar to the considered skills. A specific feature of the research is not only the determination of the professional sphere, occupation and position on the skills level, but also the accounting of the reverse effect. The methodological tools including the methods for the assessment of skills level, labour potential and extent of its implementation in a labour activity have been approved in the Vologda region. The study revealed that, at the present time, the most developed skills are the teamwork, communication and mutual understanding while the least developed ones are the initiative and creativity as well as ability to be retrained and readiness to increase the professional level. It shows that the employees of socially oriented spheres and also the representatives of state structures have more developed skills. At the same time, the development of innovative skills not only leads to the growth of labour potential, but also creates conditions for the employment in workplaces with higher skills requirements. The paper shows that higher skills level along with higher skills requirements leads to more complete implementation of cumulative potential in the labour activity. The received results can be used by regional authorities for the development of the analytical system of labour market, the development of labour force and the labour potential of the population.

The article discusses the role of foreign direct investment in the economy of receiving region and country on the example of the Russian Federation and Sverdlovsk region. The positive and negative effects of foreign capital in national and regional economies are marked. A set of indicators to assess the impact of foreign direct investment in the host region economy is offered to determine the trends of attracting foreign capital in the last decade and the role of foreign direct investment in the economic development of the Sverdlovsk region and the Russian Federation. The examples of investment projects with the participation of foreign companies which were successfully implemented in the Sverdlovsk region have been considered. The conclusion about higher rates of the transnationalization of economic activity in Russia in comparison with similar processes in the Sverdlovsk region is made. In the paper, a comparative statistical analysis of the development of the economy of the country and Sverdlovsk region by attracting internal or investment resources is provided. The comparative analysis shows that the country and region economy does not depend much on the foreign direct investment inflows. With the help of the econometric analysis, we have confirmed the hypothesis about a weak impact of foreign direct investment on economic growth in the Sverdlovsk region and the Russian Federation. The results of the calculations for the Sverdlovsk Region and the Russian Federation show that domestic investment in fixed assets is the key factor for the growth of the gross regional product and the gross domestic product.

The purpose of the article is to justify the possibility of the modernizing development of the region based on the rational use of the potential of a mixed economy of its territories. In contrast to the existing ideas about multiculturalism as a problem, demonstrating the structural imbalances in the economy of the region, the authors view it as a phenomenon that allows the region to provide a competitive advantage. The methodological base of this study is the convergence of the system, synergistic, institutional and endogenous approaches, and sharing a number of theories — growth poles, territorial industrial clusters, balanced development. The article shows the role of the institutional environment in realizing the potential of a diversified economy in the region. It formulates conceptual positions of the mechanism of regional strategizing aimed at the development of relations between territories with the different types of lifestyles. The basis of the interactions is the consensus of economic interests, compromise of competitive aspirations and market positions of the entities as equal partners. It is concluded that there is the need to change the existing system of regional strategizing in terms of strengthening its focus on the formation of the institutional channels for the communication of corporate, small-scale and farm structures. The recommendations on the potential of the mixed economy of the regions were used in the development of the Strategy of investment development for the Rostov region until 2020.

The article examines the issues of the territorial organization of social and economic space in the context of the development strategies implementation on the example of the Far East regions. This problem is associated with the growing unevenness of economic development under the conditions of the outflow of population. This leads to the growing shortage of labour, deteriorating age and educational structure of population. The population outflow results in the destruction of the existing patterns of settlement and an appropriate network of social services. The negative migration processes contribute to the loss of working-age population and increase of its differentiation. The authors hypothesized that the success of the regional strategies of socio-economic development is largely determined by the synthesis of agglomeration and cluster technologies based on the regional demographic, migration and settlement factors that are closely linked the processes of the organization of regional socio-economic space. The authors conducted the content analysis of the socio-economic development strategies of the Far East regions and substantiated a poor implementation of the cluster and agglomeration technologies in strategic planning, and the underestimation of contradictions in the strategies of socio-economic development conditioned by the outflow of the population. In the conclusion, the authors justified the necessity to develop and implement the mechanisms for the effective incorporation of the cluster and agglomeration technologies of the regional space organization in the socio-economic development of the regions of the Far East. The solution of the above mentioned problems, according to the authors, would contribute to a more substantiated development of regional spatial policy.

The article focuses on the analysis of the major process of modern socio-economic development, such as the functioning of urban agglomerations. A short background of the economic literature on this phenomenon is given. There are the traditional (the concentration of urban types of activities, the grouping of urban settlements by the intensive production and labour communications) and modern (cluster theories, theories of network society) conceptions. Two methodological principles of studying the agglomeration are emphasized: the principle of the unity of the spatial concentration of economic activity and the principle of compact living of the population. The positive and negative effects of agglomeration in the economic and social spheres are studied. Therefore, it is concluded that the agglomeration is helpful in the case when it brings the agglomerative economy (the positive benefits from it exceed the additional costs). A methodology for examination the urban agglomeration and its role in the regional development is offered. The approbation of this methodology on the example of Chelyabinsk and Chelyabinsk region has allowed to carry out the comparative analysis of the regional centre and the whole region by the main socio-economic indexes under static and dynamic conditions, to draw the conclusions on a position of the city and the region based on such socio-economic indexes as an average monthly nominal accrued wage, the cost of fixed assets, the investments into fixed capital, new housing supply, a retail turnover, the volume of self-produced shipped goods, the works and services performed in the region. In the study, the analysis of a launching site of the Chelyabinsk agglomeration is carried out. It has revealed the following main characteristics of the core of the agglomeration in Chelyabinsk (structure feature, population, level of centralization of the core) as well as the Chelyabinsk agglomeration in general (coefficient of agglomeration, index of agglomeration, coefficient of the development of the population, growth rates of agglomeration). The analysis of the internal environment of the agglomeration has shown that the industry of the majority of the cities-satellites is unprofitable; the space of the urban agglomeration is very heterogeneous. The research proves that the creation of the agglomeration will allow to solve the problems of the production diversification at the territory, to perform the effective land use, to optimize transport and housing-and-municipal infrastructure.

Health, demographic and environmental consequences of 1998 and 2008 economic crises for the Ural Federal District are considered in the paper. Regional resilience is defined as the ability of a regional socio-economic system to withstand, absorb or overcome an internal or external economic shock. The quantitative analysis of regional resilience of the subject entities of the Ural Federal District is based on two interrelated dimensions: resistance, those are the vulnerability or sensitivity of a regional socio-economic system to disturbances and disruptions; and the speed and extend of recovery from such a disruption. Because resilience as a concept captures resistance to the shock and recovery from it, resistance indexes and recovery indexes are used for assessing the impact of regions to recessionary shocks. Three sets of resilience indicators were used: economic, environmental and medico-demographic ones. The main criteria for selecting resilience indicators were their robustness as a measure of the territorial impact of the economic crisis and availability of long time series. Special attention is paid to the question identification of the qualitative and quantitative factors, which form the territorial characteristics enabling some regions to resist, or move out of, economic downturn more effectively than others. Unfortunately, a valid answer to the question why some regions are more able to withstand an economic downturn than others, or are able to recover faster, cannot be given at present. Resilience to an economic shock does not necessarily imply that the economy is otherwise strong and performing well over the longer-term. Regions that experience strong economic growth prior to a shock may appear to be less resilient. Such components of the regional socio-economic system as reserves of natural resources, sectoral structure of regional economy, skills of population, diversified economy and quality of governance do not define uniquely regional resilience.

The paper examines the issue of assessing the extent of precarious labour relations considered by the authors as one of the systemic factors of social pollution. The emergence of the social pollution of the labour sphere is primarily caused by the aspiration of employers to reduce labour costs. It leads to an increasing spread of the use of toxic practices of the personnel management. This article presents the interim results of the monitoring study, implemented by the authors on the basis of the methodology which includes the sociological survey of the employees of Russian enterprises of different economic sectors. In 2014, the authors held a pilot study in order to test the methodological tools of the evaluation of social pollution level in labour sphere including the assessment of the degree of precarious labour relations as well as verification of the hypothesis of this research. Following the results of the pilot study, the sociological survey tools were improved. The survey took place in 2015 among workers of the Sverdlovsk region. The obtained results allow us to identify the toxic elements of labour sphere. These elements are associated with the precarious labour relations and have a negative impact on the physical and psychosocial health of employees. Also, we can make conclusions about the existing trends that reflect the qualitative characteristics of current changes in the relationship between employers and employees. The limitations of the presented results are conditioned by the fact that the monitoring assumes conducting annual surveys for a long period. However, the interim findings are of interest and can be used to find solutions of the problems caused by the increasing precarious labour relations both at the level of enterprise and at the level of regional power.

The article is devoted to the problems and trends of the development of interethnic relationships at the regional level. The assumption that migration process has direct influence upon them is proved. The hypothesis of the research is that the interethnic relationships of “traditional” ethnic communities for the region fundamentally differ from the interethnic relationships of the ethnic communities formed by the new migrants. For the first ethnic communities, ethnicity is not so important while the civil identity is more relevant and over-ethnic integrated images are developed. That results in the reduction of interethnic tension. For the other ethnic communities, ethnic and cultural barriers are strong, ethnicity is relevant for them. Furthermore, the language curtain and social distance strengthen interethnic tension for these ethnic communities. In our opinion, the basic threat is that the efforts of public authorities for the harmonization of interethnic relationships are mainly bending to the first ethnic communities. The public authorities attempt to save and develop the ethnic culture to form tolerance. Meanwhile, the major interethnic tension is associated with the migration process, a negative perception of migrants and a number of sociopsychological problems. Main factors having the influence on the negative perception of migrants and interethnic tension are analyzed. The conclusions are based on the research conducted by the author in 2011, relying on the questionnaire and expert survey, on the research conducted from 2008 till 2015, on the analysis of national population census and analytical reviews about migration situation. The results of the study can be used by the public authorities of the region developing ethnic policy, migration policy in formulation forecast of socio-economic development and social tension.

In the article, the main theoretical questions of the organizational capital of the enterprise are considered. The concept of «organizational capital of the enterprise» as a system consisting of three subsystems (organization of production, labour organization and management) is introduced. It is shown that the organizational capital forms the labour relations system at the enterprise consisting of the cooperation, technological, economic, moral labour relations and the relations of workers’ responsibility. The model of cyclic evolution of crisis at the enterprise caused by shortcomings of the organizational capital is revealed. It is shown that the organizational capital is a basis for the realization of the human capital, which creates value added. A considerable attention is paid to the experience of the creation and functioning of the organizational capital at the enterprises of the Japanese corporation «Toyota». The Russian economic literature on crisis management quite often considers only the financial aspects of diagnostics, proposing the optimization of cash flows, elimination of excess stocks, transition to the medium-term budgeting and others. However, the deep reasons of crisis need to be found not only in financial streams, but also in the system of the work relationships. The shortcomings in the development of technological, cooperation, economic, moral labour relations and the relations of responsibility directly reflects the shortcomings in the development of the elements of the organizational capital as they «are adjusted» by these elements. In turn, organizational problems affect the product quality leading to the customer attrition and decrease in the enterprise’s financial performance. The lack of financial resources cause the need to save costs (first of all, on personnel, that was brightly shown by the economic crisis of 2009) that even more weakens the enterprise and system of labour relations. Finally, the enterprise loses its main resource, which is the personnel with necessary level of knowledge and skills.

The article is devoted to the processes of knowledge generation at the enterprises of military-industrial complex, which are the leaders of the regional innovative activity. The target of the research is to develop the methodology based on the use of resource application potential for increasing the efficiency of knowledge generation at the instrument-making enterprises of military-industrial complex. The system analysis of the knowledge generation processes is conducted at one of them. It allows to draw a conclusion that such enterprises have a lack of the institutes of knowledge generation processes. The authors are offered a technique of the development of the knowledge generation system at the military-industrial enterprises based on the accounting of assets and opportunities of the enterprise in the realization of intellectual activity. The developed technique is based on the determination of the horizontal resource potential of knowledge generation and allows to determine the potential of resource application at each stage of product life cycle. The comparison of the actual and theoretical values of horizontal resource potential allows to correct the distribution of a share of each of resources within a stage, and therefore, to optimize the realization of tasks at a specific stage. The offered tools were implemented in 2015 at one of the regional military-Industrial enterprises. The methodological tools of the research include the methods of expert assessment, mathematical statistics and the institutional analysis. On the basis of the offered technique and received empirical results, the institutional spiral of knowledge generation during the filling of state order at the military-industrial enterprise is developed. Its implementation will promote the decrease in the level of uncertainty during the whole life cycle of innovative activity product. The developed institutional spiral of knowledge generation at instrument-making military-industrial enterprises assumes the stimulation of knowledge generation processes at each of the stages of product life cycle. The results of this research can be used for the creation of the knowledge generation scheme as well as for the use of the efficiency increase mechanism of the knowledge generation processes at the enterprises of military-industrial complex.

In the conditions of the globalization of national economies, the current situation in macroeconomics and, as a result, the need to improve the quality of life of the population it is necessary to clearly outline and resolve the following three strategic tasks of the country’s agro-food complex: ensuring the country’s food sovereignty based on import substitution; improving the farm products competitiveness; ensuring high level standard of living at the rural area based on the social-economic development of the territories. The analysis of the government policy documents and concepts of developing the agricultural sector of economy has revealed the following. The state-run program for the farming sector development and regulation of the farmers’ market, agricultural raw materials and food in 2013–2020 is the main functioning tool, a primary factor of accelerated agro-food import substitution, and a foundation for the new national agricultural policy. At the same time, the program does not answer the question, how one can really improve the competitiveness of the domestic farm products. It does not outline the tasks and mechanisms to raise the standard of living for the rural population. The article considers the necessity to increase the agrofood sector competitiveness as a prospective strategic direction in the government export policy. It clarifies the key factors of the influence on the competitiveness of the domestic farm products, namely: at the macroeconomic level — equivalence of cross-sector exchange, subsidizing and credit financing of the agro-food sector; at the sectoral level — territorial and sectoral specialization in agricultural production and system of profit distribution between the producers, processors and retailers of the farm products. The article outlines the possible ways of employment assistance for the rural population being released as a result of improving the competitiveness of the agricultural production. It shows the advisability of formulating the single scientifically based interministerial document in the form of the national strategy and some relevant programs to improve the competitiveness of the country’s agro-food complex, employment and income of the rural population.

This study aimed to analyze an entrepreneurial experience, social innovation and human capital; the object of the study is the Bank Palmas, located in Fortaleza, in Ceará, Brazil. This bank was created to address the need to promote the income generation and job, making use of a corporate economic system, which allows to overcome the poverty axis located in a suburb called Conjunto Palmeiras, with a population of 30 thousand inhabitants. For this, we used the descriptive and exploratory research with fieldwork conducted in the locality of Bank Palmas. These actions serve as a benchmark for innovative practices and have meaningful participation and involvement of local inhabitants. A population sample consisted of 207 individuals, associates and employees of the Bank Palmas and was used to analyze the descriptive and inferential statistics. The data suggest that the entrepreneurship development concepts and social innovation and human capital are implemented by the Bank Palmas with relevant results in the local community. Members and employees of the Bank Palmas through these various actions felt themselves as active players in transforming their reality. Investment in human development is considered as a major source of innovation, the organizations of various sectors of the economy need to incorporate the strategic management of human capital, as recommended in the literature on this topic, which considers the human capital as the set of all the skills, knowledge and experience of employees or managers, involving also the creativity and innovation.

For Russia as a democratic federal state, federal relations are basic for the whole social development of the country. In this regard, it is particularly important to strike a balance between centripetal and centrifugal forces. The analysis of budget indicators presented in the article revealed the growing process of centralization, which enabled to conclude the low efficiency of the modern mechanism of tax allocation and its non-compliance to the principles of fiscal federalism. The growing budget crisis of the regions and the long-felt need of the structural reforming of Russian tax system require speedy implementation of internal reserves. Among these provisions, Russian scientists including the Institute of Socio-Economic Development of Territories of the Russian Academy of Sciences see the urgent need of the structural reform of the tax system in the Russian Federation. The results of the scientific search for answers to the questions of how and what it is expedient to amend, supplement, and delete in the Russian tax system are presented. In order to create incentives for the territorial authorities to increase the income, the algorithm of the distribution of tax revenue between the federal and regional budgets is developed on the basis of the estimations of the ratio of the volume of tax revenues collected in the region and received by the federal budget. Experimental calculations on the example of 83 subjects of the Russian Federation have identified the existing provisions of tax revenue growth in 36 subjects that could increase revenues by 2 –12 %. The authors have proposed a set of key measures for optimizing the tax incentive policies, involving the development of selective and differential principles of tax incentives, the introduction of compensatory forms of the loss of income as a result of benefits. The main measures to enhance the collection of regional and local property taxes are systematized.

The article deals with the urgent problem concerning the regional development as well as the specific organization, or to the development of an integrated system of economic security of the organization. The article discusses the importance of such an element of economic security (including the financial security) as the accounting and control as well as their possible violations. The authors substantiate their position on the relationship of the violations of accounting and control and also the internal theft, other economic crimes and their negative consequences. The analysis of the existing national and foreign sources related to the subject of the study is carried out. The conclusion is made about the lack of modern research devoted to the study of the protective properties of accounting, control and their violations, which condition economic crimes. The methodological tools of the research include dialectic method, systemic analysis, complex sociological methods: the analysis of the legal sources, of statistical information and judicial practice. On the basis of the analysis of criminal cases, financial statements, publications media, the authors made the conclusion about the conditionality of the theft in the organizations as there are the violations of accounting and control, low efficiency of control and auditing, of preventive measures for neutralization of the violations of accounting and control from the services of economic security, accounting offices, auditing and law enforcement services. The recommendations for the optimization of this work are introduced. They can be used by accounting departments, auditing bodies, fiscal authorities at the municipal and regional level and by law enforcement officials. The economic security is necessary for any organizations regardless of their forms of ownership, ranging from government organizations to small kiosks. The difference will only consist in the means and methods.

This article presents the findings of the study on the role of innovative entrepreneurship in the regional economy. The analysis is based on the methodology developed by Hermann Simon, a German scientist who has coined the term ”hidden champions” describing the phenomenon of little-known successful companies that act as innovative growth engines in the German economy. Today, the economies in different countries are developing amid the ”new normal,” in which no expected recovery followed the global crisis of 2008. This makes it necessary to rethink the role of entrepreneurship during a prolonged recession. The authors proposed and tested the hypothesis that, in this environment, the economic growth in the country and the region is increasingly determined not so much by large businesses, but by many small innovative companies. To identify Russian ”hidden champions,” we studied more than 1247 companies listed in the Innovation and Investment Market, a specialized section of the Moscow Exchange, and included in the specialized Register of Business Entities that use nanotechnology. We identified specifically Russian features of innovative entrepreneurship related to national cultural and historical characteristics and the current policy of import substitution. The authors proposed their own method for assessing the innovative entrepreneurship as a source of economic growth in the Russian regions that defines five groups of innovative entrepreneurs (global market leader, one of the global market leaders, Russian market leader, one of the Russian market leaders, not the leader in the Russian market) and compares them with large companies in terms of turnover and profit dynamics. Based on such criteria as ”number of ”hidden champions” and ”number of large enterprises per 100 thousand organizations,” we built a model for the ratio of ”hidden champions” to major companies in the Russian regions that identifies, for each criterion, three subgroups, including leaders, medium-tier and outsiders, which allowed to identify nine types of Russian regions and substantiate different development strategies for main types of regions. The study confirms that the most justified strategy for the development of innovative entrepreneurship in the region is the strategy of cooperation between different types of companies in order to overcome their weaknesses, enhance existing opportunities and activate the innovation and entrepreneurial capacity.

The purpose of the study is the substantiation of the necessity to implement the policy of neo-industrialization in Russia as a tool for overcoming the consequences of the global crisis. The hypothesis of the study consists in the assumption that the increase of Russian regions’ competitiveness during the crisis is impossible without the transformation of regional innovation priorities with the account of the modern trends in science and technology development as well as the production needs in modernization and import substitution, rapid formation of the high-tech sector. The authors suggest that one of the main reasons for modern structural crisis in the Russian Federation is ignoring of the determined impact of the level of innovative-technological development on the status of regional socio-economic systems and the country as a whole. During the test of the hypothesis, on the basis of the analysis of official statistics, there are revealed a number of negative trends that hinder overcoming the crisis by the accelerated development of modern technological waves in Russia. They are the staff reduction in the Russian science and deterioration of its quality; the increasing gap between the financial support of the scientific research in the Russian Federation and in the developed countries; the reduction of the possibility for the development of innovative business; producers’ disincentive in the innovative activities. The authors substantiate the necessity to strengthen the state innovative policy for the improvement of the socio-economic situation in the Russian Federation. The research proposes the methodological approach to the selection of the priorities for the innovative support of the economic development of the Russian regions based on a comprehensive consideration of the status and problems of the development of scientific and innovative capacity, business environment of the region, as well as its ability to create the innovative production. The calculations to assess the possibility to form the innovative activity’s centres of different types in the Russian regions are made. These centres should be aimed at increasing the share of high-tech enterprises focused on the creation of innovations to solve the current problems for Russia such as import substitution and neo-industrialization of the economy. The article is addressed to the professionals in the field of theory and practice of the management of innovative processes.

This article contributes to the solution of the relevant problem of the seaport infrastructure development for the purpose of increasing the cargo turnover in the regions of seaport location as well as to improve the quality of freight traffic on the basis of the creation of container hinterlands — dry ports. The options of dry ports as the potentially effective solution to increase the cargo turnover of existing seaports, improve the timeliness of freight transportation and overcome the environmental problems of the regions of seaport location are shown. This work analyzes the transport infrastructure of the region, the cargo turnover of major Russian sea and dry ports as well as the experience of creating dry ports in the Russian Federation and abroad. The authors propose the system of parameters for dry ports, which are recommended for the assessment of seaport infrastructure development scenarios on the stage of strategic planning. The authors have developed the approach of optimal values determination of the main parameters of dry ports by simulation modeling method. The features of construction and research of the simulation models of system “seaport — dry port” in programming software AnyLogic are considered. The results of modeling experiments with a developed simulation model are provided. This model is aimed to assess the maximum estimated capacity of the existing seaport in the conditions of the increasing irregularity of cargo traffic, and also to determine the optimum parameters of the constructed «dry port». The obtained dependencies as a result of modeling experiments prove the adequacy of the selected main parameters of dry ports for the effective evaluation of the scenarios of the strengthening of carrying and estimated capacity of existing seaports on the stage of strategic planning. The article shows that the methodology of this research can be used by the investors and public authorities as grounds for a decision on a balanced development of transport and logistics infrastructure in the regions of seaports.

In the article, it is noted that the emergence of the phenomenon of interdependence between security and development — so-called security-development nexus, becomes determining during the development of strategic documents at all hierarchical levels. It gives relevance to the search of the methodological decisions allowing to consider the possible threats to economic security at the strategic level, and the pragmatical actions which are not contradicting a strategic vector of economic entities development — at the tactical level. Instability factors which threat the economic security are revealed. A rationale for the development of the new model of national economy development, whose central element is new industrialization, is substantiated. The most important trends of the development of world economy influencing the strategic vector of the increase of the Russian economic security are considered. It is discovered that in the conditions of new industrialization, the intellectual core of the high-technology sector of the economy is formed by convergent technologies (NBICS technology). A methodological approach to the economic evaluation of management decisions in the conditions of uncertainty is offered. The methodological principles, which have to be accounted in the case of the development of the modern methodology for the economic evaluation of economic decisions, are allocated. Among them, there are the development of the preferred reality or so-called «vision of the future», the priority of network decisions as the basis for new markets development; the mass customization and individualization of requirements, basic changes of the profile of competences which provides the competitiveness in the labour market, use of the ideology of the inclusive development and reformative investment creating general values. The offered methodology is based on an optimum combination of the traditional methods of the economic evaluation of managerial decisions with the method of real option, reflexive estimates taking into account entropy as a measure of uncertainty. The offered methodological approach was tested for the development of mining and metallurgy of the Urals.

The paper describes the further development of an agent-based multiregional input-output model of the Russian economy. We consider the idea of incorporating the government into the model and analyze the results of experimental calculations for the conditional example of spatial economy. New agents are included into the model such as the federal and regional governments, pension fund and also the state enterprises producing public goods at the federal and regional levels. The government sets four types of taxes (personal and business income taxes, VAT and payroll taxes), ensures the provision of public goods and provides social, investment and interbudgetary transfers to households, firms and budgets. Social transfers consist of social assistance and unemployment benefits. The utility functions of households are expanded by the terms associated with national and regional public goods. The budget policy is designed in accordance with the maximization of isoelastic function of social welfare that formalizes the choice between the different concepts of social justice. The Gini index is used for the monitoring the inequality of income distribution. The results of experimental calculations present the convergence of the new version of the model to the state of quasi-equilibrium. The special attention is paid an optimal level of the taxation maximizing the social welfare function. Four variants of the optimal tax rates are defined: for three major taxes at a fixed proportion of rates and for each of the tax separately at zero rates of two other taxes. The further directions of modelling are identified, they allow to investigate the spatial development of the Russian economy taking into account the decision-making by private agents in responding to government policies.

The possibility of dynamic analysis and forecasting production results using the power production functions of complex variables with real coefficients is considered. This model expands the arsenal of instrumental methods and allows multivariate production forecasts which are unattainable by other methods of real variables as the functions of complex variables simulate the production differently in comparison with the models of real variables. The values of coefficients of the power production functions of complex variables can be calculated for each statistical observation. This allows to consider the change of the coefficients over time, to analyze this trend and predict the values of the coefficients for a given term, thereby to predict the form of the production function, which forecasts the operating results. Thus, the model of the production function with variable coefficients is introduced into the scientific circulation. With this model, the inverse problem of forecasting might be solved, such as the determination of the necessary quantities of labor and capital to achieve the desired operational results. The study is based on the principles of the modern methodology of complex-valued economy, one of its sections is the complex-valued patterns of production functions. In the article, the possibility of economic forecasting is tested on the example of the UK economy. The results of this prediction are compared with the forecasts obtained by other methods, which have led to the conclusion about the effectiveness of the proposed approach and the method of forecasting at the macro levels of production systems. A complex-valued power model of the production function is recommended for the multivariate prediction of sustainable production systems — the global economy, the economies of individual countries, major industries and regions.