This article studies the dynamics of environmental and economic development in the constituent entities of the Far East and Baikal region during the formation of new institutions in the country’s East. Economic development and environmental pressure per capita in 2009–2012 and 2012–2016 were calculated for each region and the Russian Federation. In addition, a decoupling index was calculated to detect the discrepancy between the economic growth rate and rate of environmental pollution in the regions under analysis. This study uncovered disparities in the environmental and economic development of the regions of the Russian Federation’s East. In 2016, there was an almost fivefold difference between the maximum and minimum values of the territories’ GRP [gross regional product] per capita. A marked gap in negative environmental impact is also noted. It is established that in most eastern regions, a decoupling effect is evident in the discharge of polluted wastewater and emissions of air pollutants from stationary sources. Finally, it is concluded that the institutional decisions made in accordance with the Far East’s new model of development have not yet had a noticeable positive effect on the environmental and economic indicators of the designated territories.
This article analyzes the impact of the following major factors influencing the Russian ruble exchange rate: oil prices, inflation, the balance of payments flows, and volatility, which are all considered against the background of the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis reveals that all these factors continued to play a role in 2020, though the shock of the pandemic exhibited certain specific features.
This article examines longevity in the sparsely populated northern region. It notes a shift in gender and territorial indicators caused by active migration of the elderly from rural to urban areas. It also studies the average life expectancy of people who have reached retirement age and analyzes the increased probability of living to advanced age. This, in turn, reveals that gender differences are retained. The article additionally justifies the conclusion that a factor in the longevity of the residents of Yakutsk is the consumption of traditional meat products from the meat of young horses (colt meat). It also emphasizes that the unique life-extending ingredients of the meat of Yakutian horses comes from naturally frozen feed (cryo-feed) high in essential fatty acids. Finally, it presents the economic premise for using green cryo-feed to increase the nutritional value of the meat of Yakutian horses.
In economics, the co-production of public goods by local communities is considered a productive way to compensate for the shortcomings of public administration. The article describes the practice of implementing territorial public self-government (TPSG) community projects for the co-production of social urban infrastructure. Based on case studies of local communities in the city of Kirov and data on other Russian regions, I demonstrate that the effects of co-production can be multidirectional. The study draws conclusions about the conditions for the occurrence of TPSGs. The research demonstrates that TPSGs occur when three conditions (vectors) occur in society: civic responsibility, civic helplessness, and paternalism. When the government is incapable of meeting all its obligations, TPSGs are a response to the demand for high-quality social infrastructure. Under these conditions, the government encourages and subsidizes the formal self-organization of citizens. However, although many economists praise the work of TPSGs, there are some downsides. First, the executive government uses TPSGs to “pass on” its responsibilities to citizens and make up for the budget deficit. Second, the government gains the support of the population, which is expressed in the approval of and trust in existing, often ineffective political institutions.
This study assesses the financial capacity of Russia’s Arctic municipalities and evaluates the wages of Arctic employees working in the education and health care sectors. Research was conducted in three areas: the budget capacity of the social spheres; the standard of living and incomes of employees working in socially significant areas; and the social orientation of municipal budgets in the Russian Arctic. The author’s method of assessing the participation of the state in the life of the population made it possible to formulate a number of proposals for improving the social spheres of the urban districts of the Russian Arctic. The study shows that education and health care have declined in the urban districts of the Russian Arctic, due to lower budgetary spending and a slowdown in the growth of wages. It is concluded that socially significant industries must be further developed using both budgetary and extrabudgetary resources, which could be procured through public–private partnerships.
Electric power is the basic industry in which the Unified Energy System was created and successfully functioned during the Soviet period. Today, its characteristics are still used as a benchmark for assessing the results of the energy reforms. Is the current energy industry a positive or negative factor of the Russian economy? Does it require additional reform, and if so, how and to what extent should it be reformed? These questions should be answered via comprehensive examination and extensive scientific analysis and research. The article examines the general economics of managing the Russian centralized energy industry, analyzes statistical data, identifies quantitative and qualitative trends, and assesses the current state of the industry and its relationship with consumers.
The author writes in support of Dr. Afanasyeva’s open letter to Russian Minister of Education O.Y. Vasilieva. He agrees with Dr. Afanasyeva’s assessment of the current problems facing the Russian academic community in terms of both the awarding of degrees and the process of publishing peer-reviewed articles. The reduction of publicly funded universities and the commercialization of academia have had a detrimental effect on academic standards. While relaxed academic standards have led to plagiarism and improper accreditation, the over-bureaucratization of the academic process has also led to unnecessary procedures that often stymie scientific research and the publication of legitimate research.
This work seeks to statistically verify the hypothesis that there is a link between violations of environmental legislation and distortions in the financial reporting of economic entities. For this purpose, the authors studied the reporting documents of companies that are operating in Russia and have violated environmental legislation. The financial reporting of the latter was analyzed based on the authors’ methodology. In order to determine the probability of distortion, companies were typologized and a probit model was constructed. The results confirmed the working hypothesis that economic entities’ opportunistic behavior in the area of environmental protection is, as a rule, accompanied by distortions of financial information about their activities.
The development of fuel and energy balances has been rather widely validated at the level of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. These balances could become the basis for retrospective assessments of greenhouse gas emissions. The dynamics of emissions are to a significant degree determined by the structure of final internal consumption of fuel and energy resources. Aggregate data make it possible to assess changes in the energy and carbon intensities of the GRP [gross regional product]. They are also the prerequisite for the creation of regional inventories as part of the national system for monitoring, reporting, and verifying the volume of greenhouse gas emissions. A correlation and regression analysis of data for 1990–2015 established a direct correlation between anthropogenic emissions and economic growth and also the public’s quality and standard of living.
This article examines the generation and accumulation of waste in the extractive sector and associated sectors that process its products. These spheres of activity are Russia’s main source of production waste. The authors calculate direct and total coefficients of waste intensity in these sectors, thus making it possible to assess environmental pressure. They also analyze the materials of the Strategy for Developing the Industry for the Processing, Utilization, and Neutralization of Production and Consumption Waste to 2030. In addition, this article examines the main directions for improving the institutional mechanisms of Russia’s environmental legislation. These directions are necessary to successfully meet the goals and objectives laid out in the document.
Irkutsk Oblast is one of the most industrially developed regions of Eastern Siberia and is a regional leader in the Siberian Federal District. From 2011 to 2016, sustainable economic growth in the region increased the tax revenues of all budgetary levels. This growth should translate into higher average incomes and improved social services. However, the stable economic growth of the region has done little to improve the social well-being of Irkutsk residents. There is a gap between the level of economic and industrial development and the standard of living of the regional population. This article describes the areas where this gap is most prevalent (employment, wages, the social sphere), considers its demographic causes and effects, and provides a set of recommendations for narrowing the gap between economic development and the social sphere.
The history, main components, and nonstandard teaching methods of the new scientific discipline “Baikal studies” are provided. An interview with an author of textbooks and scientific and popular scientific publications about Baikal, Deputy Director of the Baikal Museum SB RAS E.N. Kuzevanova, provides a brief historical description of the study of the lake. The ecological and economic problems of Baikal are discussed. An analogy is drawn between environmental laws and economic models. Opportunities for using rent income from the lake’s natural resources to finance improvement of the ecological situation in the Baikal natural area are evaluated. It is concluded that Baikal is already fully capable of “financing itself”; annual rent from the hydraulic power of the Angarа River is estimated at more than 120 billion rubles. There is discussion of the necessity and opportunity for the noncontradictory coexistence of environmental and economic efficiency with respect to the activities of human life on the shores of Lake Baikal.
As part of the UN Framework on Climate Change, the Paris Agreement of 2015 specifies a new format for international coordination of efforts to manage greenhouse gas emissions, taking into account national interests and the imperative for a general transition to low-carbon energy. This article examines the opportunity to use the Russian forests’ carbon sequestration potential in relation to the formulation and implementation of Russia’s commitments under the 2015 Paris climate agreement. It also analyzes the economic consequences of uncertainty in assessments of the carbon budget of Russian forests. It is shown that taking into account the interests of national economic development, a reduction in anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions requires development of an information base and assessment methodologies for evaluation of the carbon budget of Russian forests. It is proposed that work begin on a comprehensive strategy for the country’s participation in the implementation of the Paris Agreement. This implementation should take into account the following goals: technological modernization of the energy sector and an increase in the area of the forests. It should also consider the completeness and reliability of information about the quality of these forests.
This article looks at income’s effect on the health and well-being of Russians. In particular, it studies the effect of income on health self-assessments by describing the interactions between these factors, analyzing them, and modeling them econometrically. Based on panel data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) of public health and economic status, a pooled generalized ordered logit regression was constructed for the categorical variable “deteriorating self-assessment of health.” It calculates the marginal effects of the model’s independent variables (different income groups, the Gini coefficient, and others) for three different self-assessments of health (good, average, and poor). Econometric modeling showed that Russia satisfies the absolute income and income inequality hypotheses and that there is a statistically significant correlation between income, its inequality (Gini coefficient of income differentiation), and self-assessment of health. It was discovered in a number of specifications that the effect of income on health self-assessment is greater in men than in women. This is apparently linked to the greater involvement of men in the labor market. The results suggest that a government policy to increase incomes and reduce regional differentiation could improve the public’s subjective perceptions of health.
The aim of our study is to analyze how the government can ensure economic security in a socially oriented economy and to develop measures for improving the economic effectiveness of the Central Federal District (CFD). Most of the social indicators we analyzed fail to reach their threshold value, which corresponds to low (pre-crisis) and crisis levels. We provide a model for comparing actual and threshold values based on the statistical normalization of various social indicators. Based on the results of our study, we assess the economic security of the Central Federal District as low (i.e., pre-crisis) and propose a number of measures to improve the effectiveness of the government to ensure economic security.
Revitalizing capital investment via the monetary resources of Russian citizens is a major factor of the socioeconomic and innovative development of the country and would reduce Russia’s dependence on foreign capital. To achieve this, it is necessary to compensate, revalue, and restructure the savings of citizen, which have been devalued after being deposited in the government-owned Sberbank. The article describes how the reimbursement of citizen savings has been addressed by the government thus far and considers how lost savings can be restored (e.g., through the issuance of government debt securities). We conclude that the first priority of restoring the devalued savings should be to establish the specific and legal amount owned to each depositor (e.g., in the form of targeted debt obligations).
The article considers several socioeconomic processes to analyze changes in the social services of federal subjects in the south of the Russian Far East and Baikal region following the reforms initiated by President Putin’s 2012 May Decrees. According to the Romer–Lucas model, increasing knowledge and improving the quality of human capital are key conditions for the long-term development of territories; therefore, the state of health care and education is one of the most important factors in solving the geopolitical problems of eastern Russian. Research has shown that at least in the public sector the recent reform of the social services has failed to improve the individual wealth of workers or to increase the availability of education and health care services. This is equally true for the border regions, where the new measures caused institutional transformations, and for the Baikal region, which was “not covered” by these measures. The results of the study confirmed the thesis that in the regional policy of the East, it is important to emphasize the quality rather than quantity of investment—the extent to which it improves the basic conditions determining the citizens’ quality of life.
This article takes an otherwise standard real-business-cycle setup with a government sector, and augments it with shocks to consumer confidence to study business-cycle fluctuations. A surprise increase in consumer confidence generates higher utility, as the household values consumption more in that scenario. As a test case, the model is calibrated to Bulgaria after the introduction of the currency board (1999–2018). We find that shocks to consumer confidence by themselves cannot be the main driving force behind business cycle fluctuations, but when combined with technology shocks, model performance improves substantially. Therefore, allowing for additional factors, such as consumer confidence, to interact with technology shocks can be useful in explaining business cycle movements.
This article reviews a number of characteristics of the heating season in the Baikal region’s south both over many years and interannually. It uncovers a 6- to 10-day reduction in the heating seasons of recent decades (from 1991 through 2017) as compared to long-term data up to 1960. It also shows noticeable growth in outside temperature during the heating season: 3.9°C in Chita, 4.1°C in Irkutsk, and 5.0°C in Ulan-Ude. In the aggregate, changes in these indicators influenced the 15–19 percent decrease in the index of fuel consumption. An analysis of interannual fluctuations in heating season characteristics from 1991 through 2017 uncovered that anomalously low temperatures have greater magnitudes and are seen more frequently than anomalously warm winters. The index of fuel consumption varied by 14—20 percent interannually. This is comparable to long-term fluctuations (to 1960). It is demonstrated that against the background of ongoing warming, abrupt interannual temperature fluctuations are showing an ambiguous effect on economic activity in the Baikal region.
This article analyzes the current dynamics of regional inequality in Russia. Despite several positive changes, regional imbalances remain high in terms of the socioeconomic development of the federal subjects of Russia and require changes in government policy to ensure greater equality and comprehensive regional development. Having studied the success of European countries in reducing territorial inequality, the author proposes several ways of adapting these successes to Russian conditions and offers recommendations for improving the policy of Russia’s spatial development. To achieve these changes, the government should focus its influence on the economically weak regions, which would allow them to solve existing problems and to ensure sustainable development. The results of the present study can be used by government administrators to implement measures and improve regional development policy.
