The "Economic Strategies" journal





On Catastrophic Increase in Mortality and Measures to Save the People in Russia

DOI: https://doi.org/ 10.33917/es-5.179.2021.6-15 

How is it that in Russia, unlike in other countries, during the coronavirus pandemic the total mortality increased by a record amount and the income and consumption of the population decreased to the greatest extent? The point is that the crisis, caused by the coronavirus pandemic, is completely different from previous ones. It highlights the dilemma: should we use forces and means to prevent an economic recession with lower costs for anti-crisis measures, or focus on saving people’s lives while minimizing additional mortality and maintaining real incomes of the population? Each country, depending on objectives, prevailing conditions and opportunities, chooses its “golden mean”. In many cases such choice is not fully conscious, since it’s not possible to forecast with any certainty even over the near term. Decisions have to be taken up along the way, based on the situation and assessing the probability of certain events, including in view of the other countries’  experience in combating the pandemic.

Social Choice Dilemma in Concluding Concession Agreements

DOI: https://doi.org/ 10.33917/es-5.179.2021.16-27

Result of the government’s many years of efforts to liberalize the market of social services is a huge number of organizations that are privately owned — 45,9%, but which have minimal impact on the infrastructure development. The reason is that private business alienates long-term and capital-intensive projects, and the overwhelming part of the social infrastructure (for sports facilities it constitutes 95.2%) remains in the state and municipal ownership. The state mistakenly classifies concession projects as investment projects that are paid back only through fee-based exploitation. Thus, social policy is being deprived of a promising mechanism — transformation of concession agreements into the basis for socialization of private investments, infrastructure and services. The identified problems of social disorientation in specifying criteria for evaluating the proposals of participants in concession tenders form the basis for asocial conditions of concession agreements, which makes social services inaccessible to the general population. Commercialization of the activities of social facilities is admissible (although in a limited sense), but at the same time, services at state tariffs or free of charge should prevail. There is a need for systematic scientific and methodological work on cross-cutting incorporation of this approach into the current regulatory framework and guidelines in order to create a network of basic social infrastructure for all segments of the population.

Russia in Supercritical Situation: Managing Restoration of Life-Support Functions to Overcome the Consequences of a Natural Macro Catastrophe

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33917/es-5.179.2021.28-35

Supercritical fluid is a state of matter when its temperature and pressure are above the critical point. Supercritical situation is a state of the economy in its cumulative manifestations and mutual influence, whereby the state of key life-support profiles is below the critical point of controllability. Various forecasts are increasingly actualizing the probability of a natural (and man-made) macro-catastrophe (a large meteorite fall, an earthquake of 10–12 points and others, as well as a pandemic similar to COVID–19, but with more severe consequences). As the coronavirus pandemic has shown, modern civilization is becoming ever more vulnerable to such disasters. To overcome the destabilizing trends of a natural (and man-made) macro-catastrophe, it is necessary to adopt proactively a set of measures in Russia that will drastically increase the efficiency of public administration in relation to the list of regulated resource,  economic, technical, social and other parameters incorporating mechanisms and procedures of public administration into market mechanisms and the budgeting structure with regard to external and internal factors of the supersystem’s vital activities

Designing a Financial Mechanism for a “Technological Breakthrough”. How to “Format” Own Ecosystems so That Other People’s Digital Devices and Financiers Should Not “Format” Us

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33917/es-5.179.2021.36-45

Acceleration of technological and institutional development results in reduced lags between innovations and their installation in the economy and society, which modifies long-wave patterns (but doesn’t cancel them). In this regard, the question arises on the possibility of a “Russian economic miracle” on a new financial and digital basis. This is a question about ecosystems (digital platforms — a relatively recent complex financial and production innovation), the prototypes of which, however, have already been in history. Historical studies of protoecosystems and modern ecosystems, addressed by the author, allow us to answer the question: “ecosystem” (convergent) technologies are a factor undermining macroeconomic stability in the interests of a narrow circle of global and local players and (or) a mechanism for changing technological and institutional patterns (?!).

Current State of the Worldwide and Russian E-commerce Markets and Prospects for Their Development

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33917/es-5.179.2021.46-53

The article examines the current state of the world and Russian retail e-commerce markets and assesses the prospects for their development — the study of these issues is the purpose of the work. The research topic is relevant, because in the context of the global digital revolution and the rapid development of the world economy, the development of e-commerce is becoming one of the key drivers of the growth of all trade and the economy. To achieve this goal, based on the integrated application of such scientific methods as analysis, systematization, synthesis, generalization, classification and description, the following tasks were performed: the main development approaches included in the strategic management system of e-commerce market leaders were identified; the dynamics of the global and Russian e-commerce markets were analyzed; a comparative analysis of the development of e-commerce markets of the leading countries in terms of market volume and market growth rate was made; the key drivers and obstacles to the development of the global and Russian e-commerce markets, which are related to the current economic situation, the state of legal support and changes in consumer preferences, are identified and described; forecasts and trends in the development of markets are formulated.

Sustainability Metrics of the EAEU Economic Development: Problem of the “Core” of the Indicators and Thresholds System

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33917/es-5.179.2021.54-65

In the subject area of macroeconomic indicators there is currently not only an active search for new solutions, but also their almost continuous implementation in the practice of macroeconomic regulation. Multiple crisis processes in the world economy and politics, unfolding technological transformation, sharp manifestation of medical and biological threats have created additional impulses for forming and applying new models for assessing macroeconomic realities and a set of sustainable development problems. In the practice of world integration associations and the EAEU in particular, considerable experience has been accumulated in applying the systems of macroeconomic indicators with threshold values and procedures for responding to their violations. Critical analysis of the current system of macroeconomic indicators in the EAEU made it possible to substantiate a new vision of both the composition of indicators of sustainable economic development of the EAEU member states and assessment criteria as well as threshold values.

Olympic Games as a Way to Evaluate the Mobilization (Strategic) Resources of the Country

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33917/es-5.179.2021.66-72

Team success at the Olympic Games is a combination of material, demographic and cultural factors with non-material factors — will, fighting spirit, passion, patriotism. Exactly the same combination of factors determines the ability of a state to wage a war. Therefore, military capabilities of the state (as well as economic and technological ones), according to the author, can be assessed by results at the Olympic Games.

Raising Labor Productivity: from the Shchekino Experiment (1967) to the “Labor Productivity and Employment Support” National Project (2018). What’s Next?

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33917/es-5.179.2021.78-95

The article provides examples of introducing advanced management practices at Russian enterprises, and also describes the experience of highly skilled managers with an adequate to market realities mentality. According to the author, by actively mastering the three “whales” — management, mentality and business culture — we increase labor productivity, and therefore we have every reason to increase the workers’ wages, which are unacceptably low today.

Analasys of FDI Flow in Russian Economy Taking into Account Some Global Trends

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33917/es-5.179.2021.96-101

The author suggests a non-customary approach to the study and forecasting of the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and the Global Value Chains (GVC) — within the modern framework of Kondratieff long waves hypothesis. Taking into account long waves (about 40 years), in 2009 the author warned about the possible economic crises in Russia in 2014–2015,2020 and such crises actually happened. There were three economic crises in Russia — 40 years after the world economic crises of 1969, 1974–1975 and 1980. The question is raised about the large-scale spread of COVID-19. Also the author concludes that it is necessary to continue studying long waves approach with the aim of its use in forecasting.