The article considers the main directions of the implementation of the current transportation and transit projects on the basis of the institution of public-private partnership in Russia. This work is a continuation of the study of the theory and practice of the application of public-private partnership in the investment projects aimed at the development and realization of the transportation and transit potential of the country. On the methodological basis of evolutionary and institutional economics, historical approach, system-oriented analysis and the theory of firms, the main current projects for the development of Russian transportation and transit system using public-private partnership are considered. They are the construction of a high-speed line of Moscow — Kazan with subsequent extension to the Chinese border; functioning of the transport and logistics in the Chelyabinsk region; infrastructure of transit cargo by Northern Sea Route; participation of foreign investors in the development of Russian seaports and sea gates. It is shown that the competitive advantage of transit traffic by a particular route requires more traversing speed of cargo with a minimum of stops, handling and overloads in the way. Revenue from transportation and transit potential implementation can be comparable to the size of the resource rent in the case of the development in Russia of the production and transit sector of the economy, and not only of a transit one . In this regard, the emphasis is placed on the determination of the possibility and necessity of organizational changes associated with the development of a large public-private transportation company, able to compete with global sea container services of the route of Asia — Europe. The main directions and activities under the proposed national project «Development of transit economy in Russia: Uniting Eurasia» and its subprogram «Creation of innovative rolling stock for container and multimodal transport» are developed. The results of the study can be used in the preparation of state programs and projects, containing a system of measures to develop and implement the transportation and transit potential of Russia on the basis of institutional and organizational changes.

Currently, the achievements of science and technological progress define in a greater degree new reference points of the strategic planning for national and regional development are d by. The results of research and development which are noteworthy from the point of view of the improvement of scientific, technological, socio- economic processes in northern and Arctic territories (in our case — the Republic of Komi), as a rule, take the form of interdisciplinary projects. These projects generate the results of research on the social and economic, humanitarian and medical- biological problems; conservation of biosphere and ecosystems with simultaneous development of bioresource economics; management of mineral-raw, fuel and energy resources; spatial development; creation and use of innovative technologies. The key idea of the paper is the realization of new industrialization of the Republic of Komi taking into account the results of the research works carried out at the institutes of the Komi Scientific Centre of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The applied research of the institutes of the Komi Scientific Centre is based on fundamental studies and is closely connected with the practice of the development and location of production. They are oriented at the realization of a new paradigm of the northern policy which consists not only in the development of mineral-raw and power resources for external consumers, but also in the arrangement, sustainable development and creation of appropriate conditions for the life of the population settled down in the North. Special attention is paid to the reproduction of human and natural resource potentials. The sectoral structure of the economy of the republic, as well as of the majority of other northern and Arctic regions, will not change drastically in the long term,, but the internal content of productive forces will be different. It will correspond to the concept of resource-innovative development.

The article discusses the theoretical issues of the formation of the administrative regulation mechanisms for business entities. The necessity of the further development of theoretical and methodological base and the application toolkit for the design of business environment is proved. This can stimulate the growth of business and investment activity in the Russian regions and municipalities. The authors identify two types of government structures influence on the business entities, differentiated by the nature of the targeting impact on the economic activity of business structures — the administrative pressure and administrative assistance. It is suggested that in practice, high cost implications for compliance with all regulation requirements as well as sanctions for the violation of these requirements create preconditions for the development of informal interaction between entrepreneurs and the representatives of regulatory bodies. Therefore, businessmen try to minimize the costs associated with the implementation of formal administrative requirements, rules and regulations by personal arrangements. A mathematical model for the assessment of the informal interaction between business entities and certain officials of control supervisory authorities is proposed. It allows to determine the range of benefits for economic entities from avoiding the implementation of administrative norms, requirements and rules. It is concluded that unreasonably high level of costs for the implementation of formal administrative requirements rules and regulations by business entities composes the economic basis for the reproduction of informal relations. This determines mutual benefits for a number of entrepreneurs and a part of bureaucracy from various schemes of informal interaction.

The article describes the main provisions of the categories «potential» and «capital», their dialectic interconnection and interdependence in the field of regional socio-economic studies. The analysis of the concept of «potential» used in the different branches of knowledge, beginning with its essence as a general philosophical category and ending with the use in private, industrial sciences (economics, ecology, environmental management, resources, etc.) is conducted. The results of the analysis show that all the definitions are overly specific, represent the various modifications of the traditional «resource» concept and need in theoretical generalization. The authors have highlighted the most important essential features of the «potential» that characterize it as an attribute, an inherent quality of any object or phenomenon. On this theoretical basis, the definition of «regional capacity» is given and its structure, characterized by functionality, multi aspects and multiplicity is revealed. The potential of a territory is manifested in the following forms: the availability (concentration), gravity (gravitation), capacity (accommodation), stability (security) and positioning (position). Each of these aspects brings together the private (partial) potentials. Special attention is paid to the processes of the transformation of regional capacities, to the identification of the directions and stages of its transformation. Based on the philosophical principles of Aristotle and Immanuel Kant, it is proposed to allocate five strategic ways to actualize the potential of a territory — sustainability, quantity, quality, position, and capitalization. Capitalization of potential involves increasing its stability, size, quality, and availability that turns it from «possible» (prerequisites, conditions, factors) to the «necessity» (necessity, obligation). Work converts potential into a real social value — capital. The regional capital is an universal use-value, forming a successful and competitive regional socio-economics necessary to the society. Main provisions and conclusions of the article can serve as a theoretical basis for regional socio-economic research, be used as a methodological base for the development of strategic planning documents (strategy, concepts, schemes, forecasts, programs etc.) of the development of the regions of the different taxonomical level.

The article is devoted to the study of ecological and socio-economic environment as well as the development of effective methodological tool for the assessment of its stability. This tool allows to ascertain the level of economic activity of the regions within the limits of the sustainability of biosphere. In the article, the regional system is considered as the total of industrial enterprises, social infrastructure and natural environment creating a specific territorial ecological and socio-economic environment, whose stability depends on the level of economic activity measured by the capacity of territorial ecosystem. The use of a technique for the comparative assessment of the energy indicators of economic activity creating a specific ecological and socio-economic environment of the region as well as of the indicator of the ecological capacity of the territory is proved. The ecological capacity of the territory enables to better estimate the level of the sustainability of the region within the limits of sustainability of biosphere. This method allows to forecast the development of the studied territory by the measurement of general energy flow on the basis of closed material and energy flows. The research revealed an indicator of the sustainability of ecological and socio-economic environment of Ural Federal District. Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District is the most stable, the Chelyabinsk region is the least stable, which is associated with both natural conditions and the specificities of economic structure. The labour productivity indicator, expressed in energy units, has revealed regions with rich natural resources. It was found that in these regions, there are significant material flows in the electricity industry that leads to a large proportion of greenhouse gas emissions. The assessment of the demographic capacity fully correlates with the calculations of the stability indicator of the regional system and the analysis of labour productivity in the region. In the future, these methodological tools will allow to develop a model of the management of a sustainable ecological and socio-economic environment of the region, taking into account the environmental capacity of biosphere.

The paper is devoted to the development of methods for point and interval forecasting of the integral index of regional competitiveness. We stick to one of the most commonly used approaches to assessing the level of competitiveness based on its advantages over the others. As a result of this approach, the integral competitiveness index appears to be bounded, i.e. has a lower and upper limit. Due to this particular feature, it is proposed to carry out the forecasting of competitiveness index using multivariate logistic regression. The parameters of such model are determined using OLS through an inverse logarithmic transformation of the dependent variable. To calculate interval forecasts for the model, we proposed a new probability distribution for the errors of the nonlinear regression equation in the class of logistic curves. According to the proposed method, we calculated and forecasted the regional competitiveness level for the Russian Federation until 2020. The analysis of the data revealed some features of the regions distribution in terms of competitiveness level and indicated regional development trends. The paper has been prepared within the research project ¹1675: "Methodological and analytical tools for solving problems of spatial development of Russian economy under conditions of modern reforms" in terms of the basic part of the state order in the field of scientific activity of Russian Ministry of Education.

The article substantiates the impact of the institutional factor on the development of regional international economic relations. The scope of the study is regional international economic activity (IEA), the subject- matter is the role of the institutional factor in its development. The study purpose is to develop a scientific approach for the assessment of the institutional factor impact on the development of region’s international economic relations. The hypothesis is that the targeted efforts of all participants of IEA of the region (business, authorities, local community) to strengthen of theese components of the institutional factor, which have a strong influence on the regional socio-economic development. A methodological approach for the assessment of this influenceis developed. It includes determining three elements of IEA institutionalization — agreements, organizations, events. A three-dimensional model is proposed for the coordination of these elements with 3 groups of countries — developed, developing and CIS, including the Eurasian Economic Union, and also with basic indexes characterizing the qualitative and quantitative contribution of region’s IEA into its socio-economic development. This model is tested on the example of the Sverdlovsk region of Russia for 2003–2015. That has allowed to define various kinds of the effects from strenthening the IEA institutional component, which are expressed in the increase of the export of the region, improvement of its investment attractiveness, the diversification of regional economy as well as the the generation of additional jobs and tax flows increase.

Large cities possess a sufficient potential to participate in the investment processes both at the national and international levels. A potential investor’s awareness of the possibilities and prospects of a city development is of a great importance for him or her to make a decision. So, providing a potential investor with relevant, laconic and reliable information, the local authorities increase the intensity of the investment process in the city economy and vice-versa. As a hypothesis, there is a proposition that a large city administration can sufficiently activate the investment processes in the economy of a corresponding territorial entity using the tools of the information providing. The purpose of this article is to develop measures for the improvement of the investment portal of a large city as an important instrument of the information providing, which will make it possible to brisk up the investment processes at the level under analysis. The reasons of the unsatisfactory information providing on the investment process in a large city economy are deeply analyzed; the national and international experience in this sphere is studied; advantages and disadvantages of the information providing of the investment process in the economy of the city of Makeyevka are considered; the investment portals of different cities are compared. There are suggested technical approaches for improving the investment portal of a large city. The research results can be used to improve the investment policy of large cities.

A rapidly growing number of megalopolises in the world leads to some substantial problems to environmental conditions of their population. One of these problems is the intensification of motor traffic, which contributes to air pollution measured as average concentrations of several air pollutants and climate change in the form of more frequent heat waves and cold spells. The present study analyzes the selected indicators of environmental health in Moscow, the largest Russian megalopolis which contributes for adoption of sound and evidence-based health risk management policies. Individual carcinogenic risks attributed to traffic emissions varied across the study area of 400 km2 between 3 × 10 -4 and 6.53 × 10 -4 which is typical for most megalopolises in the economically developed countries. However, the carcinogenic risks in some districts may exceed the threshold of 10 -3 which is regarded as unacceptable. The total population carcinogenic risk for 3.5 million people who lived in the study area with intense road traffic was 23 additional cases of malignant neoplasms per year or 1513 cases per 70 years. Additional mortality during the extreme heat episode in the summer of 2010, when forest and peat fires caused exceptionally high levels of smog in Moscow, reached 11,000 deaths. The measures to be taken by the executive authorities include informing the residents about the onset of extreme heat by means of an early warning system, and rating the relative severity of heat and air pollution according to a 4-point scale.

The article is devoted to a current problem of regional development, such as the regulation of labour migration. In the article, the causes of the inefficient use of labour resources are identified and the solutions to reduce tension in the labour market both at the state level and at the level of an individual employee are proposed. The formal rules and informal constraints that have a significant impact on migration are allocated. The institutional support for the regulation of migration in Russia is considered. At the level of the entities of the Russian Federation, the analysis of migration flows for the period from 2012 to 2014 is carried out; the entities of the Russian Federation are grouped according to the degree of the influence of the indicators of the natural movement and the migration of population as well as to the qualification structure of migrants (professional education, age structure). The basic imbalances in the labour market in the entities of the Russian Federation are revealed. The authors have proposed a model for assessing the attractiveness of workplaces based on the objective indicators of the development of Russian regions presented in the statistical report of Federal State Statistics Service. A feature of the model is the ability to determine the main factors influencing the attraction of labour resources to the region. The methodological tools of the research include the mathematical methods of processing statistical data. Testing of the model is conducted for the Federal districts of the Russian Federation. According to the developed model, the coefficient of the attractiveness of a workplace in 2010 and 2014 for all Federal districts of the Russian Federation is calculated. In the article, the legal framework regulating the flow of the human capital is also analysed. The assessment of the implementation of the state program of support for the resettlement in the Russian Federation of compatriots residing abroad is given.

The Global financial crisis hit the economy of the Kyrgyz Republic by the third wave of its transmission in the early of 2009. The article examines the impact of the Global financial economic crisis on the public budget and unemployment of the Kyrgyz Republic. We analyzed the transmission of the crisis on the public budget firstly and its effect on unemployment level by using the vector autoregression approach (VAR) and quarterly data for 2005–2013 within the framework of IS-LM model for small open economies with floating exchange rate. There is an inverse relationship between the public budget and remittances inflow, liquidity level, volume of deposits, and exchange rate. As a result of the study, the fall in remittances inflows, liquidity level of the banking system, depreciation of the national currency lead to an increase in public revenue. Therefore, the increase in public spending during the crisis period, with the aim of unemployment reduction, may be considered as a crucial policy. The study result allows to policy-makers to exactly know what channels of transmission mechanism transfer the Global crisis on the public budget and its effect on unemployment level of the republic in order to undertake anticrisis macroeconomic policy. The final result of the study indicates that the increase of unemployment level by 1 % requires the increase of public spending by 0.63 %.

The subject-matter of the article is the study of the peculiarities of the youth labour market in such a specific region of Russia as the city of Moscow. The topic of the work is connected to the adaptation of young specialists training system to the regional requirements of the employers of Moscow. The main hypothesis of the research assumes that Moscow is the atypical region of Russia and it is inexpedient to apply criteria and methodological approaches, which are standard for our country, to its labour market. As a method of the research, a selective survey of key employers of Moscow and respondents aged from 14 till 30 years has been used. The data of the sociological survey conducted by the authors have allowed to establish the following features of the researched region: a respectively low level of youth unemployment compared with the whole Russia; focusing of employers on such features of personnel as a good communicative skills learning ability, professional knowledge and competences. Moscow employers don’t pay significant attention to such characteristics of young specialists as language and computer skills, computer knowledge and the diploma of a prestigious educational institution. The main difficulties in finding employment for young specialists in the city of Moscow are: overestimated salary expectations; the weak professional training level and unwillingness, in fact, to work. As a result of the survey, the practical offers have been formulated. There are two directions of their application: the offers focused on the behaviour of the youth at a stage of their training and those offers focused on the increase of a practical component of the activity of professional educational institutions. The authors came to conclusions about the need of a deep orientation of educational institutions to the applied training for specialists, of practical workers for teaching special disciplines, the development by future specialists their abilities to present themselves and the results of their work to the professional environment (self-presentation skills) and to objectively estimate real opportunities of their employment.

The article is devoted to the search of indicators, which reflect the ecological conditions and environmental behaviour and can be used for economic analysis. This environmental and economic issue still remains unsolved. The indicators of the emissions of harmful substances into the atmosphere and water objects, which are used in many economic works, characterize the future impact on the environment and cannot adequately reflect its state. From the ecologists’ point of view, the result of the environmental monitoring are, in particular, the indicators of the tests of air and water exceeding MPC (maximum permissible concentration) in a total number of the studied tests as a percentage. They have been already included in a number of official statistical bulletins. The paper shows their advantages for a concise accounting of a state of the environment in economic. The regional values of the chosen indicators are studied and various hypotheses of their strong differentiation are analyzed. The introduction of the ecological component to the indicators of quality of life as well as to the human development index is especially important at present time. The authors propose to use the indicator of a share of the negative tests of water and air as an additional fourth component in the human development index. The results of the calculation of the ecologically corrected index of human development for all entities of the Russian Federation are presented. It differs significantly for a number of regions from the traditional index of human development.

The investigation of threats negatively affecting the state and the development of human resources as well as the varieties of security threats is of particular importance in the theory and practice of personnel security measures. The purpose of the article is to identify and classify the ideas of the main threats to personnel security of the region (the research is carried out on the example of the Irkutsk region). On the basis of the content analysis of Russian regulatory legal acts and scientific publications, external and internal threats to personnel security of the region are highlighted. As a result, the list of threats to personnel security of the region consisting of 37 stands is composed. The political, economic, demographic, social, technical and technological, ecological, legal, ethnocultural forms of threats are demonstrated. The authors came to the conclusion that the internal threats to personnel security of the region (first of all socio-economic) are dominant. An assessment of the urgency and relevance of the threats to the personnel security of the region is given. With the use of the technology of the hierarchical factorial analysis, the types of threats (factors of the lowest level) were identified and their influence on the general level of the urgency of personnel security threats (a factor of the highest level) is estimated. It is revealed that legal threats, as well as threats caused by the low labour potential of the region, have the most significant impact on the estimation of the urgency of threats. The study applies the following analysis methods — a content analysis, the analysis of linear and cross-distribution, hierarchical factor and correlation analysis. The analysis is based on the data of the expert survey conducted in the Irkutsk region (2015. To determine the relationship (coherence) of the expert evaluations, the Kendall’s coefficient of concordance is calculated. The received results can be used for studying and identification of the personnel security threats, which are specific for a certain region. They can also be a basis for the forecasting and analysis of the threats to regional personnel security and the development of the methods to respond to them.

The socio-economic results of the reform in teachers’ salary, which had a positive impact on the quality of school education, are considered. However, the economic difficulties that our country encounters, may jeopardize the achieved results. The results of the monitoring study of the Center of the Economics of Lifelong Education of RANEPA «Efficiency of the school education» conducted in 2015 in the Sverdlovsk, Voronezh, Ivanovo regions serve as information base. 2800 school teachers, 2800 households having a school student at family, 200 directors of the educational organizations are interviewed according to the survey method. Surveys are conducted on the representative selection including both urban and rural population. It is shown that the average teacher’s salary has reached the level of the average salary in the region in the 2013/2014 that met the requirements of the May Presidential Decree. This ratio was retained next year, and the size of the teachers’ salaries fully reflected the differentiation of the socio-economic indicators of the development of the Russian regions under consideration. The main positive effects of teachers’ salaries raise are: the rejuvenation of the teaching staff, professional development of teachers, their entering the Russian middle class. The authors study the impact of negative phenomena in the economy on the prospects of reproduction of the achieved socio-economic results of teachers’ salaries raise. The reduction of pupils’ parents’ incomes that can lead to a decrease in a request for paid educational services, which is one of the sources of extra-budgetary funding of school education are considered as such effects. From this perspective, the projective educational strategy of the parents of school students is considered. The analysis of the economic activities of school organizations, on the one hand, and educational strategies for the parents of schoolchildren in the conditions of unfavorable economic situation, on the other hand, have shown that the lowering in school funding from the regional budgets, arising out of their deficient nature, would lead to the decline of the achieved results.

The issues of the dependence on imports and import substitution are the major factors in the development of the domestic economy. The subject matter of the research is the dependence of construction industry on imports in the area of foreign technology, it is aimed at identifying the scope of the problem and justifying the mechanisms to overcome it. The article substantiates the relevance and importance of import substitution in the production of construction materials and equipment. Import substitution in the construction industry can be implemented in two main ways, requiring different approaches in supporting and encouraging. Firstly, there is the substitution of products used in construction, aimed at minimizing the risk of disruption of the supply of imported products for construction purposes and the predominant use of domestic analogues of imported products for construction purposes. Secondly, there is the substitution in the technologies of production of goods used in construction, focused on stimulating the development of the domestic production of competitive products and technological and managerial modernization of the construction materials industry, construction industry. The process of import substitution in the construction industry have a number of limitations. In this connection, the article discusses the opportunities and constraints for import substitution. A special attention is paid to the practice of the formation of regional construction clusters as a tool of implementing the policy of import substitution. The purposes and principles of the development of clusters, sources of initiatives, used systems of transfer and knowledge and innovations are considered critically. The conclusion is made about the need for the strategic development of new products for the construction market and domestic research and development projects within the framework of cross-sectoral clusters. The basic forms of state support required for the implementation of the import substitution policy in the construction industry are substantiated. These are organizational, administrative and economic measures, whose implementation during the transition to the import substitution can lead to the reduction in the cost of construction materials. In the conclusion, the article states the priorities in the support of import substitution policies for the construction industry. The conclusions and recommendations proposed in the paper can be used by the federal and regional authorities in the development and adoption of strategic documents of the construction industry, in the planning of spatial development of the territories.

The subject matter of the analysis is the non-linear characteristics of the new model of higher education in relation to its resources and risk environment. The purpose of this article is to prove the need and the possibility of transition to the nonlinear model of higher education in the region on the basis of theoretical positions and the results of the study of non-linear socio-economic processes. In this connection, the socio-economic factors of such transition are characterized; the objective necessity of its implementation in the context of the economic and social uncertainty of a particular region, which is Ural Federal District, is shown. A new type of relationship between universities and their social partners is considered. The need for the change of interactions between educational communities; reliance on the use of a new wide range of economic, social and spiritual resources; the constant search for new mechanisms, educational programs, relations with the external environment, management decisions are argued. Ural Federal District is shown as one of the most advanced regions of the Russian Federation not only in the sphere of the economy, social and cultural life, but also in the sphere of higher education. This circumstance is related to the constant, intensive search for innovative approaches to the modernization of higher education in the region, including the formation of its non-linear model. The presented situation forms the basis of the hypothesis that the non-linear model of higher education can ensure its competitiveness in the global educational space, to enhance its role in the society and specific regions of the country and to turn it into a locomotive of the socio-economic and socio-cultural development. The study is based on an interdisciplinary methodology, including the potential of theoretical sociology, sociology of education, economic sociology, management theory, regional economy. The findings of the research serve as the basis for improving the educational policy of the Ural Federal District.

The aim of this study is to systemize and present the quantitative and quality evaluation of the economic and non-economic effects of the implementation of the new mechanism of the support of renewable energy in Russia. It should allow meeting the middle-term goal of 2.5 % of renewables at the Russian wholesale electricity market by 2024. To achieve this aim, in the introduction part of the article, a detailed description of the new mechanism of the support of the renewable energy in Russia is presented. It is based on the payment for energy in the wholesale electricity market. The estimated aggregate positive effect resulting from this mechanism’s implementation was expected as follows: a) replacement of non-renewable fossil fuels to renewable energy, b) reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, c) the average prices reduction in the wholesale electricity market, d) reduction of the costs on environmental measures and health protection measures in traditional power generation, e) creating new jobs, f) reduction of fresh water used for cooling in traditional power generation, g) multiplicative effects from the development of renewable energy and etc. The resulting economic effect is estimated at 47.77 billion rubles per year by 2024. The authors relied on expert estimates, forecasts of the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Economic Development, the Russian Energy Agency, the International Energy Agency, the International Agency for Renewable Energy, the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century, the experience of foreign countries, the data of Russian Federal State Statistics Service.

The ready-made garment industry of Bangladesh is one of the largest formal manufacturing sectors. It has played a key role in the country’s process of industrialisation, empowerment of women, export oriented development and growth. Workers from poor socio-economic backgrounds are working in the garment industry. Their health, safety and working conditions are very poor and not protected. There is a lack of regular inspection and compliance with local law in buildings and factories. This led to the collapse of the eight story Rana Plaza building in the capital Dhaka on the 24th of April 2013, “killing 1,100 workers and 2,500 injured” 2. The main aim of the study is to assess the impact of Rana Plaza Tragedy, where RMG workers make garments for multinational brands of Australia, Europe and USA, and the advantage which took these companies of the absence of labour laws, workplace health and safety standards, building standards, long working hours and low wages in Bangladesh. The study used both primary and secondary data including related case studies. The practical application of the study is to develop formal ethical, labour-law, health and safety standards for a factory worker; construction; institutions and courts for monitoring the supplier’s behaviour onshore and large multinational firms offshore. The study recommends to protect the rights of women workers who are sowing garments for the fashion conscious consumers from the developed countries. Future research will explore inclusive growth for workers and how to stimulate inclusive sustainable business for export led garment industry.

This article analyzes a diverse range of the enterprise’s export potential growth factors in emerging pharmaceutical clusters of Central European Russia. Classification and comparative analysis were used to identify export potential attributes (production, finance, labor and marketing), which have allowed to reveal the strong connection of cluster and regional factor groups with the results of export performance. The purpose of the study is to provide exports-seeking pharmaceutical companies with a set of tools to enhance their export potential. The hypothesis that the cumulative impact of the specified attributes leads to the strengthening of pharmaceutical cluster export potential and promotes an effective integration of the region in the world economic space, is developed and tested. The methodology combines the geo-economy-based theory with the theory of clusters competitive advantages. The impacts of export potential growth factors are estimated by using an econometric model based on math statistics. Thus, five Russian regional pharmaceutical clusters (Belgorod, Kaluga, Moscow, Oryol, Yaroslavl) are shown. Findings identify an objective causal link between enterprise export potential growth and competitiveness factors of cluster origin (network business chains, production functions interconnectedness and flexibility, production localization). An action plan for the purpose of the maximum use of competitive advantages of the cluster organization for export activities of the entities of the pharmaceutical industry is developed. Conclusions and recommendations of the study are intended to enterprises in pharmaceutical industry and regions’ public authorities, implementing cluster development strategies. It is thus essential to improve marketing and organizational innovations, reduction of commercial expenses under the cluster environment, development of drugs production and delivery chains from R&D to end-users in order to enjoy greater economic benefits from Russian pharmaceutical firms’ export potential growth.

The article is devoted to the development of approaches to improve the efficiency of Russian aerospace industry enterprises in terms of industry reforming given the influence of economic risks and financial instability. The article discusses the policy of the diversification of production as one of the key factors of increasing the competitiveness of domestic aerospace industry enterprises. The authors analyze the experience of domestic and foreign corporations in the sphere of diversification and conclude that Russian space enterprises and corporations lag behind the development of international companies in carrying out diversification. The interconnection between enterprise economic stability and the diversification of its production is established. The authors have developed a mathematical model for calculating the optimal structure of primary and diversified products and its impact on enterprise financial stability in the conditions of limited financial resources. The advantage of this approach is that it can be integrated in a common methodology of the diversification of industrial enterprises production. The authors have also developed the algorithm of multi-criteria evaluation and optimal distribution of the volume of resources to manufacture diversified products. The algorithm is based on dynamic programming models. The scientific results of the article can be applied to create a system to manage the diversification of production. The main functions of this system are to identify current and emerging technologies that can provide significant competitive advantage for enterprises in the potential markets of high-tech products, as well as to identify and eliminate unproductive or constraining regulations, methods and management practices that are inappropriate to diversification policy. Thus, it becomes possible to implement the monitoring of the process of the diversification of production at all its stages.

This article’s objective is to develop conceptual approach to the study of key decision-making factors of cross-industry spatially localized innovation networks regularities by the application of quantitative and qualitative data of St. Petersburg Innovation and Technology Cluster of Machinery Manufacturing and Metalworking. The paper is based on the previous research findings which conclude that such networks have a set of opportunities and constraints for innovation. The hypothesis is that in the clusters, representing a special type of these networks, the spatial proximity partly offsets the negative impact of industrial distance. The authors propose a structural and logical model of strategic decision-making to analyze these effects on innovation. They specify network’s influences on performance: cognitive diversity; knowledge and expertise; structural autonomy and equivalence. The model is applied to spatially localized cross-industry cluster and then improved in accordance with the obtained results for accounting resource flows. It allowed to take into account the dynamics of innovation activity and to develop the practical implications in the particular business context. The analysis identified the peculiarities of spatially localized crossindustry innovation cooperation in perspective of the combinations of tangible resources, information and other intangible resources for the renewal of mature industries. The research results can be used in business as well as in industrial and regional economic policy. In the conclusion, the article outlines future research directions: a comprehensive empirical study with the analysis of data on the factors of cross-industry cooperation which were identified in this paper with testing of causal relations; the developing an approach to the study of spatially localized networks based on the exchange of primary resources in the economic system stability framework.

The issue of the development of small and medium-sized business is relevant for many years. In the article, the questions of the support of small business through the system of public procurement are considered. Within this research, the authors have tried to systematize the data on the dynamics and structure of the public procurements from the point of view of the participation of small business in the purchasing process from the moment of the adoption of the Federal Public Contracts Act that allowed to reveal certain tendencies. The main methods of the research are the vertical and horizontal analysis of time series, the correlation and regression models of the panel data. The data on the participation of small business in the public procurements are grouped by various characteristics depending on the analysis purpose. The groups of the data have been analyzed on 83 entities of the Russian Federation. It has allowed making a full-scale estimation of the efficiency of procurements from the economics point of view. To estimate the influence of procurements on the development of small business entities, three hypotheses have been put forward: an increase in a number of customers placing orders for the small business enterprises, and a decrease in a share of the customers who are not meeting the requirements of the law about the threshold of 15 % lead to the growth of the budget savings; an increase in a number of demands for small business enterprises leads to the increase in the number of these enterprises in the regions; the number of the applications placed for small business entities influences the turnover of small enterprises. On the basis of the panel data of the unified information system of the central and local government procurement for the period of 2011–2015, econometric models confirming the hypotheses have been built. The authors’ calculations may be used by the authorities for the further development of measures for the support of small business entities through the system of government procurements.

This paper empirically analyses the determinants of foreign direct investment inflows into the Russian regions. This problem has become highly relevant for the necessary modernization of the Russian economy after the recent economic slowdown and sharp decrease in budget revenues. The authors model foreign direct investment flows with the use of the gravity approach according to which investment flows are positively correlated with the size of the investor’s country as well as the size of the recipient region and are negatively correlated with the distance between investor and recipient. The empirical analysis is based on a constructed database consisting of the foreign direct investment flows from 179 investor countries into 78 Russian regions for the period 2006–2013. The authors apply the Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood method and identify the following factors determining foreign direct investment inflows into the Russian economy: the gross domestic product of the investor’s country, the gross domestic product per capita in the recipient region, the distance from the investor to Moscow, the openness of the region, the economic situation in the region, the innovative capacity of the region and the foreign direct investment of the previous period. Interestingly, the distance from the recipient region to Moscow matters for the regions in the western part of Russia (relatively close to Moscow) but is not significant for the regions in the eastern part (remote regions).

The article deals with the problem of the flexibility of an organization as the ability to adapt effectively to the external environment. The authors have identified and investigated different approaches to estimating the flexibility of an organization on the ground of flexibility grading, calculation of the general index of flexibility as well as the calculation of flexibility’s ranking score. We have identified the advantages and disadvantages of these approaches. A new method of the estimation of an organization’s flexibility on the ground of the calculation of relative profit margin has been developed. This method is the multifunctional assessment tool of enterprise’s functionability in the current context of difficult and volatile economic environment. It allows in the early stage to identify negative trends in the production and financial figures and thus, it enables the organizational leadership to take steps in advance in order to avert a crisis in its activity. Keeping the profit margin at the same rate at the forced contraction of output, because of the negative impact of external factors, will confirm that the organization has adapted to the external environment and, therefore, it is flexible. The organization can be considered with margin rate beginning to low up to zero value as an organization with an insufficient level of flexibility that is at the “zone of crisis” and it is characterized by the depletion of reserved funds and reduction of current assets. Loss-maker is nonflexible and the presence of loss means that the organization has an evident sign of crisis and it can be bankrupt.

This article describes the influence of macroeconomic factors on Kazakhstan Stock Exchange Market by using data from 2005 to 2014. Engle-Granger cointegration test has shown that stock index is cointegrated with the exchange rate, interest rate, CPI and oil price. Vector error correction model has confirmed that macroeconomic variables and the stock index has a long-term equilibrium relationship. Moreover, empirical results have shown that stock index can be used as a leading indicator of the economic situation in Kazakhstan. Therefore, the authors decided to consider the impact of major macroeconomic indicators to the dynamics of the stock market of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The Engle-Granger cointegration test results show that the following variables such as exchange rate, 10-years long-term bond rate, the consumer price index and the Brent oil price are cointegrated with stock index, which means that there is a long-term relationship between this stock market index and these variables. With the help of econometric models, the authors have found the factors such as the exchange rate, the 10-year long-term bonds rate, the consumer price index and the Brent oil price (these factors have the long-term relationship with stock market index). Changes in the dynamics of the stock market index in Kazakhstan are caused by changes in the dynamics of Central bank's reserves and export. The analysis has shown that the economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan (the index reflects the situation in the real sector of the economy) remains dependent on world oil prices, the volume of exports and the rate of the national currency.