The analysis of the Russian strategic planning documents has demonstrated that the strategizing of spatial development is the issue, which causes the greatest difficulties both in terms of methodology and scope. The officially adopted “Strategy of the spatial development of the Russian Federation until 2025“ defines some of the main goals of the state regional policy, but fails to incorporate many important issues. Taking into account the statutory provisions on the Strategy’s sources, the article aims to determine the completeness and consistency of the Strategy’s initially set priorities. In particular, these priorities include the requirements of the national economic security. The main conclusions relate to the degree of the Strategy’s compliance with both traditional and new tasks of the state policy of regional development. We underline achieving the positive economic equalization of the Russian Federation subjects as a traditional task of regional development policy, which directly meets the requirements of the national security. We have emphasized that the Strategy of various lacks the treatment of the aspects of institutional and economic support for implementing this strategic document’s goals. One of the main conclusions highlights the need to integrate a wide range of issues concerning the development of the federal relations’ economic and legal foundations into the Strategy. The effective federal relations are one of the conditions for ensuring the Russian state’s stability and security. In this regard, the article’s conclusions rationalize the need to elaborate the next steps in both strategic planning and federal reforming in the Russian Federation. The study’s results can be used for the further work on the Strategy of spatial development and development of the measures, aimed at improving the federal relations’ economic and legal foundations in the Russian Federation.

In the article I introduce the concept of “the scientific and research forces of society”. The concept characterises an independent factor of economic growth that includes a system of searching for new knowledge along with the mechanisms and structures for transferring it into production. I demonstrated the difference between the scientific and research forces of society and the scientific and intellectual potential of society. The general condition for the forces’ development is the establishment of the creative spirit in society, that is the positive attitude to search for new technological, economic and social ideas. The weak development of the society’s scientific and research forces is the reason for the restrained growth of the territories’ technological potential and the associated level of the population’s welfare. I analysed the dynamics of the number of personnel engaged in research and development. Further, I hypothesised that in Russia there has been a tendency for science to leave the region and concentrate in “capital territories”. That tendency leads to the possibility of the regional peripheral economy’s emergence. Thus, I substantiated the necessity of expanding the regional and urban research activities in order to form regional and urban scientific and research forces of society. Such forces will ensure the transition of the country, regions and municipalities to a new level of technological development. I proposed the measures for strengthening the relationship between science, government and business by creating a fiscal mechanism, reflecting the interests of entrepreneurs and society. The mechanism should include the creation of the fund for the development of science in Russia and its regions.

The paper focuses on the mutual interaction between export from Turkey to Central Asian and Turkic Republics (the CATRs) and exported product range. For measuring the range of exported products, we use economic complexity index (ECI) that refers to the knowledge intensity accumulated in the country’s exported products. In addition, ECI provides information regarding the countries’ export structures and income levels. We explore how export levels of Turkey and the CATRs, which have common religion and ethnicity, and the countries’ ECI scores interact with each other. In this regard, we demonstrate how export affects the countries’ ECI for both the CATRs and Turkey. For this purpose, we study the possible relationship between mutual trade volume and the countries’ ECI scores by employing Westerlund’s cointegration analysis, Pooled Mean Group Estimator (PMGE) model and Dumitrescu-Hurlin’s panel causality method. We used the data on the researched countries for the period from 1996 to 2015 collected from official web sites. We have found that export from Turkey to the CATRs and Turkey’s ECI scores have a long-term relationship. Additionally, there is a unidirectional causality relationship from Turkey’s export to the CATRs to Turkey’s ECI score and from the CATRs’ ECI scores to the CATRs’ export to Turkey. To sum up, our findings support the hypothesis that higher trade volume between Turkey and the CATRs increases the export of complex products for both sides. Based on the results, stronger mutual trade relations increase the total gain not only for Turkey but for the CATRs, too. Lastly, in future studies, we plan to cover all Post-Soviet countries and reveal the relations between bilateral trade and the range of exported products.

The modern economy is on the way to a new technological order based on knowledge-intensive industries relying on digital technologies. This transition’s possible effects are yet to be sufficiently studied as they require thorough analysis and the use of the appropriate tools. Moreover, it is necessary to develop new indicators considering the specificity of the economy’s digitalization. The article presents a methodology for studying the phenomena of the digital economy and digital divide in Russian regions. Using the methodology, we developed new indicators, approaches and techniques for studying the changes at different levels of hierarchy and the effects of their impact. In the first block we established a composite indicator for studying regional imbalances in the development of digital economy. This indicator has several advantages as it takes into account the availability of the basic information and communication technologies and wired network services. In the second block we introduced the method of classifying the Russian regions by the level of digital technologies development. Differences in the mean values of variables across clusters allow determining the magnitude of the inequality in the technology’s dissemination between the groups of regions. In the third block we identified the key determinants of digital development and information inequality based on the panel data regression models. We built separate models for the information and communication technology accessibility index and its two sub-indices, assuming they were influenced by different and divergent factors. Defining the effective institutional mechanisms for digital development will determine the direction for boosting the competitiveness of the Russian regions and engage additional sources of economic growth. Furthermore, it will help increasing innovation activity and reducing the digital divide.

In the digital era in Russia, there is a need for the regional industry’s accelerated development. I aimed to assess the process of the mutual influence of information and communication technologies (as a tool for the digital environment’s formation) on production processes in the Russian Federation regions. For that purpose I built a correlation model that allows identifying and characterizing the relationships between the studied processes. I hypothesised that the region’s industrial production (the resulting figure) depended on the cost of information and communication technologies (the studied factor). Accordingly, the study is based on the economic and mathematical modelling of empirical spatial data of the Russian official statistics, particularly, on the simulation of a correlation model. The study has determined the nature of the information and communication technologies’ influence on production processes in the Russian regions. Furthermore, it has proved that the regional industry has significant reserves for further development. In particular, I discovered that there is an uneven rate of the information and communication development at the regional level. In most regions, measures are being taken to create a favourable environment ensuring interaction between authorities and enterprises, and production of competitive software compared with foreign analogues. Nevertheless, there is a number of problems including a low level of public access to the Internet and to the region’s technological equipment, the regions’ digital divide, lack of the necessary regulatory framework. Thus, the proposed correlation model is an effective tool for analysing the regional industry’s development in the context of digitalization. Moreover, the model can be used as a management tool that allows assessing the effectiveness of the investments in information and communication technologies. The study’s results can contribute to the research and monitoring of the regional industry’s development, and identification of the resource requirements, which are necessary for the digital technologies’ introduction. These research findings can be applied for establishing the sectoral and integrated projects and industrial development programs.

Vietnam is building the market economy while still determining development plans as important tools for managing and operating the economy. In response to the challenges posed by economic globalization, the Vietnamese government has established the necessity to promote the macro economic analysis and forecasting for ensuring the government’s policy-making and socio-economic development planning. A macro-econometric model for medium-term socio-economic development planning in Vietnam was built and called the Vietnam’s model. This paper answers the following questions: which key applications can be implemented using the model? What is the model’s quality of forecasts? The paper briefly presents how to forecast using the model. Then, I demonstrate how to synthesise, validate, balance and combine the model’s forecasts implemented by the ministries and provincial authorities, and with application of judgemental methods. I establish the ways to build baseline and target forecast scenarios. The paper shows how the model can evaluate shocks and economic policies. Additionally, I demonstrate how to adjust planned target indicators in the process of implementing the medium-term socio-economic development plan. The article also evaluates the accuracy of the model’s ex-ante forecasts. Finally, I apply the model’s ex-ante forecasts for producing the official forecasts for building the Socio-Economic Development Plan (SEDP) at national scope for the period from 2016 to 2020.

Forecasting of the economic indicators’ dynamics is an important task that ensures the economic security of the Russian Federation regions. Statistical analysis reveals key linkages between the indicators, even if their nature is unknown. We aimed to develop and verify a method for identifying regional factors without taking into account federal trends towards the economic conditions’ improvement or deterioration. We used regression analysis for assessing the changes in the corresponding indicators’ values for the previous periods. We assumed that the nature of the indicators’ impact for the previous years does not depend in a statistically meaningful way on a region and analysed year. For the short-term (one-year) forecast, we used the multiple linear regression method. Assessment of the quality of forecasting the indicators’ changes was based on the adjusted determination coefficient. We showed that separation of federal trends increases the regional indicators’ predictability. Further, we performed the long-term forecast using the Monte Carlo method. We predicted the indicators’ values based on the obtained regression formula adding random variables corresponding to the regression’s standard error. We presented the result of the calculations as percentile estimates of the indicators’ values. Finally, we verified this method, using a retrospective forecast that has shown a good agreement with the real data. The study’s results can be used as a basis for constructing a system of statistical forecasting of the development dynamics in the Russian regions. One of this method’s limitations, particularly, is a tendency to changing the indicators’ predictability for different years, which leads to an inaccuracy in assessing the possible deviation of the indicators’ values. The presented method only predicts regional indicators normalized by condition of the state economy as whole. Future research will be focused on identifying the nonlinear relationships between the indicators.

In the context of an acute shortage of financial resources for improving the economy’s real sector and necessity to solve crucial socio-economic problems of the territorial systems’ development, the significance of the studies on the processes of reproducing the territories’ investment potential increases. Moreover, it is crucial to assess the priority directions for shaping the investment potential and the related inter-territorial relationships in order to examine the centres of the investment resources’ attraction, zones of their influence and unrelated territories with a low level of the potential’s development. The paper analyses the methods for studying the inter-territorial relationships and substantiates the necessity to use spatial autocorrelation and autoregression. I present a methodological approach to studying the interregional relationship. This approach allows identifying sources for shaping the investment potential of the regions’ economic growth. Furthermore, this approach suggests modelling the potential’s structure in the priority directions of economic activity using correlation and regression analysis. I study the interregional relationships in the processes of shaping the investment potential in the priority directions of economic activity applying the spatial autocorrelation method and using various types of distance matrices. Based on this approach, I identify priority directions for shaping the investment potential of the region’s economic growth (mining, manufacturing, construction, transport infrastructure and logistics, education). Moreover, examination of the specific character of the interregional relationships in the priority directions has allowed identifying four clusters of closely interrelated regional systems in the Russian Federation. They include «Central cluster» (Moscow, Moscow region, Tula region, Samara region), «North-West cluster» (St. Petersburg and Leningrad region), «Ural cluster» (Tyumen Region, Sverdlovsk Region, Chelyabinsk Region, Republic of Bashkortostan, Perm Krai, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous District, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District) and «South cluster» (Krasnodar Krai, Republic of Adygea, Republic of Crimea, Sevastopol). I have confirmed the established interregional relationships by analysing the cluster structures operating on their territory in the priority directions of economic activity. The study’s results can be used by researchers for shaping spatial models of the regions’ economic development, as well as by public authorities for implementing the Spatial Development Strategy of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2025.

The balance of the regions’ demographic dynamics in many ways determines the country’s sustainable demographic development. The high level of the regional fertility differentiation, historically manifested in Russia, requires the development of specific tools. These tools are necessary for analysing the regional imbalance as well as the trends of the regions’ convergence (divergence) in terms of fertility rate. The study analyses convergence of fertility in Russia. For this purpose, I developed a theoretical and methodological framework that assesses the concept of convergence at three levels: ideological and political, theoretical, and instrumental and applied. Methodological approaches to analysing the fertility’s convergence allow assessing the dynamics of the fertility’s interregional dispersion, the structural impact in the tendencies of regional convergence, as well as the changes of the regions’ ranked positions in terms of fertility. I demonstrated the methods of analysing σ-, β-, γ-convergence. Further, I tested the developed tools using the data on the total fertility rate for the period from 1990 to 2016. A separate analysis was conducted for the period from 2007, when the measures aimed at supporting fertility significantly strengthened. The results of the study have demonstrated that in the historical perspective there was no fertility convergence. Moreover, there is no fertility convergence in the period of active implementation of the state measures to support fertility. Thus, the recent demographic policy is yet to produce a positive effect in relation to levelling the regional differences in fertility. I concluded that analysing the regional fertility’s convergence allows understanding the nature and prospects of the population’s reproduction processes in the country. This analysis expands the information base for making management decisions in the sphere of demographics and allows addressing the demographic problems in Russia as it contributes to the growth of effectiveness of the measures to support and stimulate fertility. The study of the so-called club convergence is a prospective direction for further research.

Currently, the migration flows, including academic migration, are increasing. Th e presen t situatio n require s studying both the problems of the academic migrants’ adaptation in a new socio-cultural environment and the academic migration’s impact on socio-economic processes. However, there are very few studies focused on the academic migration. The article aims to demonstrate the possibilities and risks of academic migration and to model its invariants influencing socio-economic indicators. We hypothesise that certain factors might accelerate the process of migrants’ adaptation and influence the socio-economic indicators of the host territory. We analysed Russia’s position in the systems of academic migrations and theoretical foundations concerning the definition of the concept «academic migration» and its invariants. Based on the analysis, we consider academic migration as one of the resources that positively influence socio-economic processes. In addition, we extrapolate the thesis about internationalization of the resource blocks on the education system. Academic migration can be considered as human capital in the transfer of innovative technologies both to the host country and abroad. We analyse domestic and foreign studies describing the influence of individual factors. Moreover, we highlight the conditions contributing to an increase in the share of academic (highly skilled) migration replacing a low-skilled one. For assessing the possibilities of academic migration, we apply the method of analogy and transfer the physical quantities on the social processes. Thus, we determine adiabatic invariants of migration in general and academic migration in particular. The obtained results prove our assumption about the influence of academic migration on the socio-economic processes of the host territory. We plan to focus further research at a more in-depth study of conditions that support academic migration.

Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug — Yugra (KMAO) is the North’s most industrially developed region and the key supplier of the oil and gas resources. Moreover, it is the historical homeland of the small indigenous peoples of the North (SIP). The problem of saving the KMAO’s traditional economy is relevant to other North regions, too. The paper analyses the evolutionary changes in the traditional nature management on the developed territories. Additionally, it establishes the methodological tools to substantiate the possibility of the SIP’s entrepreneurial activity and its main directions. We hypothesised that the traditional nature management, which determines the necessity of the entrepreneurial activity’s development, is volatile. We revealed the reason for the fisheries’ low profitability in the traditional economy and proposed the ways of increasing the efficiency of the traditional sector’s enterprises. Furthermore, we demonstrated the role of the state and corporate structures in supporting traditional industries and traditional ways of the SIP’s living. An analysis of the development of the traditional nature management in the historical perspective has revealed the instability of this kind of activity of indigenous ethnic groups. The instability is caused by several threats of political, socio-economic, environmental, institutional, demographic nature. We demonstrated the specificity of the modern state of traditional nature management in the territories of active industrial and transport development. Traditional nature management involves reindeer herding, hunting, fishing and collecting the wild crop. Furthermore, we considered the forms of organizing the enterprises of traditional nature management. These forms include communities with the stable legal status, non-profit enterprises, limited liability companies, reindeer herding companies, trading posts. We formulated the reasons for the strengthening of the ecological threat, caused by the expansion of the areas transferred to the oil companies for long-term lease, which negatively impacts the environment in these territories. We suggested the methodological tools for substantiating the possibility for the entrepreneurial activity of indigenous ethnic groups. We have depicted them in the form of algorithm of the wild crops’ harvesting and processing in the territory of Russkinskaya settlement that belongs to Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug.

The depth and persistence of the Great Recession that started in 2008 had a considerable impact on income distribution and inequality. Therefore, studies of living standards and evolution of income inequality are trend topics nowadays. Our goal was to estimate the impact of the economic crises on household expenditure and the trends and evolution of regional inequality. We applied our analysis to the Spanish case based on Household Budget Survey data from Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE, the National Statistics Institute) and the period of eleven years between 2006 and 2016. A model that showed good results in modelling income was the biparametric gamma model, which is further very useful to estimate inequality. First, we tested the validity of the model, which allowed us to obtain the inequality data. Second, we extended our analysis studying the evolution of inequality, as well as household living standards, by examining the impact of the Great Recession on household expenditures. For the second part of the paper, we conducted longitudinal and transversal studies. The main results show that, in general, expenditure inequality reduces during the period studied. Moreover, given that average spending decreases in most regions, the tendency is for them to equalize on the downside, especially for the period of the economic crisis (2008–2013).

The relevance of analysing the impact of various factors (including finance and tax mechanisms) on reproduction processes is due to the complex problem of reproducing the oil and gas resources. We focused on studying the tax incentives and the state’s tax expenditures on the mineral extraction tax, and particularly, on oil extraction tax. We hypothesised that differentiated impact of the tax incentives would necessitate the improvement of the incentive mechanisms in the context of transforming paradigm of the hydrocarbon resource base’s reproduction. The research methodology includes the analysis of the impact of the state’s tax expenditures on investments in geological exploration, prospecting operations, and growth of oil resources. We conducted this analysis based on statistical data on five regions of the Russian Federation using Data Envelopment Analysis. The obtained results of the comparative analysis have allowed dividing the analysed Russian regions into three clusters. In this case, Tomsk Oblast and KhMAO-Yugra form a cluster characterised by the minimal positive effect of tax incentives on oil resources’ reproduction. The research results have demonstrated the efficiency of the tax incentives in stimulating extraction that leads to the imbalances in the natural resources management. In the territorial aspect, the hydrocarbons resource base and oil-and-gas industry’s sectoral structure cause that imbalance. In the technological aspect, the imbalance is due to the extraction’s intensification that negatively affects the resources’ reproduction. Based on the analysis, we suggest introducing a justified investment of a part of the released capital (as a result of tax incentives) belonging to users of natural resources into geological exploration in accordance with regional principles. The study’s results can be used in the field of finance and tax legislation as well as in oil-and-gas industry management in the sphere of geologic exploration.

In the article, we develop the project management methodology in the field of the environmental management and protection. The study’s relevance is due to the need to develop the principles and mechanisms of project management. They are necessary for implementing the economy’s environmentally oriented development, using the natural resources rationally, reducing the environmental burden and improving the quality of the population’s life. We aimed to substantiate the implementation of new management technologies by combining the principles of the project and ecological approaches, providing the flexibility of resource management. We suggested the differentiated approach in the project management in accordance with the strategic goals and achievement of the established indicators of the territory development. This approach ensures the project’s competitiveness, the possibility of its territorial geo-referencing, the efficiency of the project’s implementation. Further, we developed theoretical approaches and practical recommendations for implementing the project approach for managing the region’s environmentally oriented development. We incorporated the results of modern studies in developing the project management methodology in the regional economy. Moreover, we considered the preconditions of transitioning to project-oriented management in the sphere of the environmental management and protection. We identified characteristics of the ecologically oriented projects. Then we proposed their classification using the project’s functional purpose, the results’ purpose and direction, the project’s sources of financing and its implementation level as the classificatio n criteria . W e analyse d th e practica l experienc e o f implementing the environmental projects in the Russian Federation and in certain regions of the country. Finally, we demonstrated the advantages of the project approach in comparison with the program-target management of economic development. The study’s main provisions can be used as a theoretical, methodological and practical basis for substantiating, selecting and implementing the projects of environmental and economic orientation. They include the projects of production’s ecological modernization, reduction of negative environmental impact, elimination of accumulated ecological damage, management of climate changes, Arctic’s development, and development of the market of ecological goods and services.

Honey is considered the only food of animal origin that can be consumed without being processed. The literature presents several reasons why people consume honey, namely, it being a natural and healthy product known for its dietary, nutritional and medicinal characteristics. Moreover, other reasons for honey’s purchase include the product quality; the region of origin; the information available on the product’s label, the brand’s reputation; and the variety, texture, taste, aroma, appearance, packaging and price of honey. Thus, we intend to identify determinant factors on which consumers base their purchasing decision. Therefore, we developed a cross-sectional study based on a non-probabilistic sample of 474 individuals, 399 of whom were honey consumers. We collected the data in the period from March to May 2016 using a questionnaire [1], which we applied directly to consumers in the city of Bragança. Later, we analysed the data with SPSS 23.0 software. The data analysis included a univariate descriptive analysis and a multivariate analysis that involved assessment of a binary logistic regression in order to identify the determinant factors for purchasing and consuming honey. The statistically significant parameters included taste, colour, origin, and certification label, at a significance level of 1%. These characteristics explained 68.9 % of the consumer’s decision to purchase honey. It is noteworthy that non-consumers considered the certification label important (when purchasing the product to offer to someone), while in the process of decision-making honey consumers valued taste, colour and country of origin.

The concentration of population and productive forces in Russia is significant : 58% of the country’s population lives in 124 major agglomerations. Moreover, 20 largest agglomerations produce 40 % of the country’s gross domestic product. However, excessive concentration of resources can lead to “growth diseases” meaning that negative externalities can reduce the concentration’s positive effect. Federal, regional, municipal levels of government need to regulate the agglomerative processes for lowering these negative effects. The basic instrument of regulation is the metropolitan governance system. It offers an opportunity to bring an agglomeration as a control object to a necessary state using a set of control mechanisms. Based on content analysis, we performed the author’s multilevel decomposition of the metropolitan governance system, which differs from other studies by a greater depth of analysis. As a result, we presented the metropolitan governance system in the form of three subsystems: the control subsystem (“who controls?”), the controlled subsystem (“controls what?”), the subsystem of forward and backward linkages (“controls how?”). Each of these subsystems consists of 16 constituent elements. The elements of the control subsystem are the government bodies’ composition and structure; methods for forming the government bodies; the status of agglomeration, its government body and participants; authority’s territorial fragmentation. The controlled subsystem includes branches as control objects; responsibilities within the branches (planning, coordination, service provision); territory as a control object; methods for forming the agglomeration’s territorial boundaries; methods of distributing the government bodies’ functions. The elements of the subsystem of forward and backward linkages are the agglomeration’s budget, transfers, taxes; the state (including regulatory and legal) regulation of the agglomeration’s development; inter-municipal cooperation; mechanisms of coordinating and expressing the participants’ interests; property of agglomeration authorities. For assessing each element, we proposed 46 formalized characteristics and their alternative values. Additionally, we tested four main metropolitan governance models (voluntary, one-tier, two-tier municipal, regional).

At the present stage, the relevance of the municipalities’ interregional cooperation is increasing. This cooperation’s development is most needed in the municipalities located on the territories with interregional borders. However, the interregional relations’ effective building is hampered by the lack of tools to quantify the effects of the municipalities’ location near the interregional border and their dependence on management decisions taken by neighbouring Russian regions. We attempted to quantify how the location and municipality’s hierarchical subordination to a particular Russian Federation subject influences its socio-economic status. For analysing group and intergroup relations we applied the tools used in the hierarchical analysis (HLM-Hierarchical linear modelling). We identified the groups of municipalities in accordance with their belonging to Russian subjects and their location (in the subject’s central part or near the interregional border). Further, we analysed 336 municipalities belonging to 7 Russian subjects. 193 of the municipalities are located near interregional borders. The results have proven the tools’ applicability in spatial analysis. The calculations have revealed the influence of the municipalities’ location on the indicators’ achieved values. Additionally, they have allowed us to quantitatively assess the municipalities’ significance. Through the data analysis we have determined that some values of the indicators of the location and municipality’s hierarchical subordination are influenced more than other ones. The findings can be applied for developing an effective management system for municipalities located near the borders of the Russian subjects.

The problem of efficient forecasting for the agriculture is connected with the imperfect methodological and instrumental substantiation of its development parameters. Systematisation of the western models of partial equilibrium has proved that projecting the international experience of forecasts’ substantiating on the Russian agrarian economy reduces the forecasts’ quality and distorts the predicted situation for the food market. That happens because such models are based on different criteria and objectives for the farmers’ development. We developed modern models for substantiating the parameters of agricultural development and scenario forecasts. The research objectives are connected with generalisation, systematisation and critical assessment of the instruments used for agricultural forecasting in Russian and foreign practice. We focused on shaping the substantially different instruments of scenario forecasting and model calculations. We applied the method of econometric diagnostics, the partial equilibrium model, and Cobb-Douglas production function. We used the data of financial reporting of 250 agricultural manufacturers from Penza oblast for the period from 2006 to 2016 as the study’s information basis. Further, we developed a set of scenario forecasting models, which are significantly different. These models have the functional capabilities of assessing the prospects of the agricultural development taking into account the attained production level, agrarian market’s environment, state measures, key factors of the agricultural products’ output. Based on the assessment of these models and diagnosed results, we concluded that the existing trends of forward movement in terms of the agricultural production’s supply are insufficient, as they do not fully satisfy the demand. We revealed the elasticity and disproportionality of the relationships between the growth rates of supply and demand in the agro-food market. Moreover, we collected the data on the qualitative dependence of the activities’ results in total on the factors of agricultural production and the state support measures. These factors show the threshold of expediency for additional investments of land, labour, capital and subsidies. This information will allow improving the economic mechanism of forecasting the agricultural strategic development. Additionally, it will contribute to strengthening the focus on the outcome of the manufacturers’ activities and increasing the level of achievement of the anticipated indicators.

The long-standing efforts of the agro-industry management to enhance the innovative processes resulted in more than modest innovative activity of their participants. The study assesses the openness to innovations of top managers and owners of the agro-industrial enterprises in Kurgan Oblast. We based the research on the thesis on the existence of a set of factors hampering innovative activity of the agro-industry, including subjective and socio-psychological factors. Moreover, we hypothesise that human factors play the decisive role in solving the problem of innovations’ implementation (or non-implementation). Underestimation of innovations’ role in the development of the managed system, main stakeholders’ resistance to innovations’ implementation cause agro-industry’s deceleration and implementation of the very conservative, inertial, extensive scenarios. We tested the hypothesis using a representative sample survey of top managers and owners of the small- and medium-sized agro-industrial enterprises. Using the standardised methodology of psychological testing of the main components of openness to innovations, we assessed an overall level of openness to innovations as fairly low. Organizational openness appeared to be the most problematic component, especially in comparison with relatively high values of personal and cognitive openness. For increasing innovative activity of the agro-industrial enterprises, we recommend state authorities, which regulate competitiveness, to use a more direct approach and the system of economic incentives for innovative behaviour. This system of incentives should include a system of standards of innovative activity that in case of failure would block the organization’s access to the programs of the agro-industry’s state support. The study’s results can be used in scientific research on the innovative activity of the regional agro-industry and in educational process of the field-oriented universities.

In the study, we assess the land resources as an input in agriculture. The research’s novelty is in defining a new role of the land resources’ quality in modern scientific developments at the interface of economics, soil science and ecology. This allows studying the economic consequences of the land mismanagement or soil degradation. Historically, economic analysis has unfairly dropped the studies of the land resources’ quality in the second half of XIX century, focusing on the returns from other factors of production. However, recently a scientific trend has emerged that aims to study the interactions between the land resources’ quality and the economy in general and its branches (especially agriculture) in particular. We applied the obtained methodological findings in the agro-economic research of the degradation of lands in Belgorod oblast. We hypothesised that the soil degradation negatively affects not only the volumes of crop production, but also the total farms’ revenues from all kinds of activities. For assessing the parameters, we used three different variants of the linear and logarithm production function, considering various sets of data. The first variant was in absolute terms. The second and third variants were dependent and independent variables normalised to the area of agricultural land and the capital, respectively. In every case, the soil erosion indicator negatively affected the revenue. The indicator was statistically meaningful with the elasticity less than 1. It means that 1% growth of the eroded agricultural land in Belgorod oblast leads to 0.3 % decrease of agricultural revenues. At the same time, the revenue’s elasticity per area of agricultural land is only 0.2, meaning that the land resources’ quality plays a more important role than the land area.

Domestic agriculture is one of the few economy’s sectors that maintained a noticeable growth in the context of the macroeconomic slowdown. Agriculture’s labour productivity remains at a relatively stable level. However, the accumulated growth potential poorly transforms into the agribusiness’ further qualitative changes. We hypothesise that the declining investment activity and institutional divergence of the regional agribusiness are interrelated. The prerequisites of this process lie in the development of both regional agro-industry and the region’s economy. We conducted a comparative analysis of the series of agricultural production indexes by the categories of farms, adopted in official statistics. The Kruskal-Wallis test has shown the production’s prevailing unevenness in agricultural organisations, farms and households belonging to federal districts and regions. In the framework of the integrated approach, we analysed the main indicators of the agribusiness’ activity from the perspective of the economic actor at the level of municipalities. We simulated the modelling of the investment accelerator of the regional agrarian production. Further, using segmented regression we revealed the reduction of the acceleration effect in the regional agrarian production. We compared agribusiness’ institutional structures in every segment. Moreover, we proposed a number of research areas, reflecting the main determinants of business activity in regional agribusiness. These determinants can be used for monitoring transformational processes at any level of agro-industry. We summarised the provisions applicable as the main directions of the regional agribusiness’s policy for maintaining business activity and eliminating the existing imbalances in the business development.

The sharp increase of the impact of economic uncertainty causes the decrease in the stability of the revenue bases of the constituent entities’ budgets. An analysis of domestic and foreign theory and practice leads to the conclusion that there is no systematic research on this topic. Moreover, the budget revenue management does not take into account the impact of economic uncertainty due to the lack of relevant methodology. We hypothesise that the existing approaches to assessment primarily aim at analysing the formation of corporate financial resources in the context of economic uncertainty. That peculiarity does not allow adapting these approaches to the study of the economy’s public sector and the state budget system. Based on the identified characteristics of economic uncertainty, we compiled a comprehensive assessment methodology using a number of statistical methods. This required the development of a new methodology for assessing the regional budget’s revenue potential and a methodology for assessing the impact of the classified factors of economic uncertainty. The identified types of budget revenues played an important role in establishing the methodology. The developed mathematical model logically linked the indicated methods and the revenues typology. The model presupposes calculation of the aggregate impact of economic uncertainty based on the methods of linear algebra. We tested the methodology on the example of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation in the Central Federal District. The testing has allowed establishing and quantifying the link between the regional budgets’ revenue structure, the impact of economic uncertainty and the budgets’ stability. In addition, based on the obtained results, we proposed the development of a special roadmap and specific tool for monitoring the impact of economic uncertainty on the regional budgets’ revenues. The developed methodology can be used both in the practical activities of the regional financial authorities (including Federal Tax Service of Russia) and in scientific research.

The problem of developing the tax potential of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation is crucial in the context of the country’s socio-economic instability. This instability results in the limited opportunities for the regional budgets to get financial support from the Federation. Combining the best practices of developing the tax potential with new author’s approaches and recommendations has allowed identifying the main ways to improve the fiscal policy of regional authorities. The article describes the opportunities and directions for further development of the tax potential of the Russian Federation entities in order to increase the level of their fiscal capacity. In particular, I focused on analysing the measures aimed at the extension of the existing tax base and improvement of the region’s investment climate for attracting potential taxpayers. The research methods include empirical and statistical research, synthesis of practical and theoretical materials, formal logic. I performed data processing and information systematization by applying cluster method, classification, comparative, logical and econometric analysis. In the context of the existing regional legislation, I identified the opportunities for the mobilization of tax revenues. A separate section is devoted to the implementation of the stimulating tax incentives and development of the integrated approach to its efficiency assessment. As for the prospects of improving the constituent entities’ investment attractiveness, the paper analyses opportunities and potential results for applying tax credit and differentiated tax rates. Moreover, the article examines the creation of funds for producing the import-substituting goods on the region’s territory. Based on the results of analysing the best regional practices in taxation and legislative framework of 85 entities of the Russian Federation, I developed proposals aimed at the development of the economy’s priority sectors. Particularly, they focus on attracting investments through establishing new models and forms of the state support of innovative and investment activities. Such proposals are especially relevant for the regions characterised by a low level of fiscal capacity and unbalanced budgets.

Permanent inflow of foreign direct investment is a powerful driver of economic development in developing countries. However, the country’s underdeveloped institutional environment imposes additional costs on the investors. We identified the specificity of the institutional environment’s impact on attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) in developing countries with different levels of economic development. Based on the heterogeneity of the studied countries, we hypothesised that in developing countries institutions become an active determinant of FDI after exceeding a certain threshold. In other words, institutional factors do not affect FDI inflows into relatively underdeveloped countries among a group of developing countries whose level of economic development does not exceed the threshold. To test this hypothesis, we simulated an intra-group economic modelling based on the data of the World Bank, the Heritage Foundation and the For Peace Foundation for the period from 2005 to 2015. The main tool of econometric analysis was a panel regression with fixed effects at the country level and a two-step least squares method with instrumental variables. We used indices of economic freedom and the state insolvency as aggregated indicators of the non-overlapping groups of institutional factors. The study’s main results have confirmed the hypothesis that institutional factors affect FDI inflows only in the countries where gross national income per capita is higher than average. Moreover, we defined the threshold value of gross national income per capita that a country needs to achieve in order to make any institutional changes to enhance FDI inflows. Thus , government policies , aimed a t increasing the developing countries ’ attractiveness for foreign investors, should firstly take into account the level of economic development of the recipient country.