The competitiveness of individual companies is related not only to their own characteristics, but also to the institutional and economic characteristics of the home countries of these companies. How the business environments of countries affect the results of applying management practices in different companies is a complex research issue, as managerial practices have many characteristics. Nevertheless, Russian enterprises have to use new technologies to increase competitiveness in the world market. We analysed both the sector of transportation where geographic closeness is a key indicator of competition, and transportation facilities where incremental costs and savings can be implemented to build variables of the market structures. The research sample includes 210 specialized logistic firms with variation of ownership structure and collateral agreements. We have examined firms in two markets: Russian and German ones. The analysis is based on the data from 7 Russian regions, and 6 German federal states. We have found that the quality of managerial practices — estimated by using a new survey instrument — is strongly linked with commercial ratios such as a rate of fail to deliver and a rate of consumer satisfaction. A high level of competitiveness is demonstrated by a greater number of companies in the same region. We have found that this is positively correlated with increased quality of managerial capabilities. This correlation is reinforced when we quantify the number of local firms with local logistic infrastructure. This paper reveals that the increasing the effectiveness of managerial practices are due to the characteristics of the country of origin. The results allow to develop recommendations for policy-makers to improve the business environment.

The article assesses the economic consequences of rising mortality of the population suffering with cardiovascular, coronary and respiratory diseases in the Russian cities with extreme temperatures for the period from 1997 to 2017. The data on the temperature on the earth’s surface was collected daily from 1121 weather stations located in the cities with a population over 50,000 people. During the considered period, the number of extremely hot days has increased in 6 regions of the Russian Federation. Moreover, a steady trend towards climate warming has been revealed in 7 Northern regions. On average, in the span of 21 years, Russia had 21 days with extreme temperatures per year. For assessing the effect of extreme temperatures on mortality of the working-age population with selected groups of diseases, we used a panel data model with fixed effects. We have discovered that mortality statistically significantly depends on both low and high temperatures. However, high temperatures impact mortality more than cold temperatures. We have assessed economic losses from mortality of the working-age population as the sum of the regional products’ indicators for the considered period, weighted by the rate of labour force participation and the average number of deaths in the selected population groups. According to average assessments, in the period from 2000 to 2016, for 82 subjects of the Russian Federation the losses amounted to 0.6 % — 0.7 % of Gross Regional Product (GRP) annually. The obtained quantitative assessments can be used in designing the regional development strategies and concepts of smart cities in order to improve the quality of life of citizens.