Content №3 от 2006
Region as a basic term of regional reproduction theory
The article describes the role played in a system of the socio-economic relations and specific features of a region (a region is regarded as an object of management). A reproduction approach is used for the analysis. The following terms of regional economics are defined in the article: a region, a territory, a district, a territorial system, an economic space, a territorial and regional planning and management. The article states that a region could be considered not only as a subsystem of the country economy, but also as a relatively independent unit that has its own reproduction cycle with its own specifics in the reproduction stages and socio-economic processes taking place in the region.
Problems of the youth employment in provincial regions
The contemporary demographic processes taking place in the Kamchatka Oblast show a stable depopulation. For example, the young people migrate for lack of jobs; only 28% of the youth receive training of any kind, most of them in the institutions for higher education. The unemployment among young specialists grows and is equal to 4% of the economically active population in the Oblast. What causes this fact is analyzed in the article. To improve the situation, the Center to facilitate the young specialists’ employment has been established. As the practice shows, the Center proved to be an effective instrument for promoting the young specialists into labour market.
Federal conditional programs of regional development: problems and prospects
The article assesses the role of federal conditional programs in the federal governance system of regional development. The author proposes a new mechanism to implement federal conditional programs which includes the establishment of public development corporations in depressed macro regions and new directions and sources of their funding. The author also considers the new ways to enhance the regional program governance existing in Russia through increasing the effectiveness of interaction between different levels of government (federal, macro regional and sub federal). The article reasons the necessity the government to be involved in investing the core industries in depressed territories. The author describes the methods to distribute the investment transfers, which could stimulate the authorities to find effective strategies for the economic development of regions.
Regional development and quality of economic growth
The paper considers the issues of the spatial development of Russia and a tendency of focusing the economic development in few regions. Analysis of how the capital and labor intensities of GDP change in regions is given in the second part of the article. The third part explores the institutional changes caused by further centralization of governance taking place in Russia, particularly the issue of the necessity the federal and regional authorities to exercise mutual control over each other. The conclusion is that the federal center has failed yet to build an effective system of control at the regional level over the spending of budgetary resources.
Strategic objectives and potential for the Novosibirsk Oblast development
The article considers the methodological foundations and major principles of the Long-term Socio-Economic Development Strategy for the Novosibirsk Oblast. The competitive positions, key risks and limitations of the current and long-term development of the region are outlined. A special focus is made upon a basic advantage of the region, i.e. a unique scientific and educational potential, a considerable innovation reserve and a favorable economic and geographic location. The article shows the role of the Strategy among other federal and regional programs and projects and describes main directions and instruments of their implementations. The conclusion is that the implantation of the Strategy could allow a major objective, i.e. to facilitate the Novosibirsk Oblast to become a principal innovation center of the Western Russia in the XXI century, to be achieved.
Classification of reserves and resources of the hydrocarbon material
The paper describes the general criteria to classify the resource reserves and energy sources, and concludes that the existing classifications are mainly built according to the following two criteria: reliability of the existing information about a location of these reserves and sources, and a degree to which they have been involved or may be involved in economic activity and which depends on the technologies available and the economic environment. The article analyses the classification of the oil and gas reserves and resources having been effective in the USSR and Russia as well as the historic differences between domestic and foreign classifications. The article also describes basic criteria used in contemporary techniques being applied in the international audit over the reserves management and internal accounting. Main statements of a new classification for the oil and gas reserves and resources in Russia are presented. The conclusion is that the new classification gives more detailed and complete information than that one having been in effect.
“Hard luck story” of abandoned villages (sociological study)
The article analyses, through a case-study approach, the processes of appearing a great number of village communities in the Russian map which had lost their major employer because of the bankruptcy happened to most reformed collective farms. The paper shows the reasons and consequences of this destructive “modernization” of a Russian village community; describes some abandoned village histories. The conclusions made by the authors are based on their personal observations, interviews and public opinion pools carried out within the framework of the sociological research expedition to rural regions of the Novosibirsk Oblast in 2004-2005.
Subjective quality of life: integrated and particular indicators
A contemporary social policy in Russia assumes the tools to assess the quality of life to be developed to receive both actual and subjective (persons’) appraisals. The article describes a case-study of the Novosibirsk megapolis carried out to obtain respondents’ subjective assessments of their quality of life which is interpreted as a set of features of the individual life’s situations being suggested to assess from the point of view of their correspondence to the standards defined by the researcher. Through a factorial analysis the author has divided a set of variables into some groups, and a logistic regression allowed the author to define which parameters of the quality of life raise a possibility of the respondent to feel satisfaction with his own life as a whole. The output obtained shows the priority of social factors in respondents’ explanations their feelings of satisfaction with the life.
Child and juvenile neglect in the Vologda Oblast
The enlargement of the child and juvenile neglect has become one of the key social challenges. There are two million of the neglected or homeless children in Russia. This problem is also observed in the Vologda Oblast: over 2001-2004 a number of such children has critically grown from 240 to 1868 persons. This fact causes the significant economic losses. Calculations of the economic loss on the base of an indicator of the juvenile mortality in consequence of the child and juvenile neglect showed especially high values in 1999-2003. On the one hand, the existing situation shows an increase of the economic losses in the Oblast because of the child and juvenile mortality, on the other hand, a rejuvenation tendency of factors defining a level and structure of mortality in this age. Moreover, the child and juvenile neglect should be regarded negative because it is a primary cause of other social problems such as an alcoholism, delinquency, drug addiction and etc.
The financing of innovation projects through credit banks
The article discusses the issues of using the resources of credit banks to finance innovations. The article also analyses why banking capital insignificantly influence on the dynamics of the innovation financing in regions of the Siberian Federal District while there are effective methodological instruments in possession of credit institutions to select the promising innovation projects. The article describes the approaches to adapt the existing banking technologies aimed to assess the credit applications for the capital investment projects including an innovation component that could allow the projects proposed to be evaluated according to the principle of securing safety and profitability of the baking credits.
Hydropower industry development in the Siberian Federal District: priorities and limitations
The article describes the priorities and specifics of the power industry in the Siberian Federal District connected with a high share of hydroelectric power stations in the power industry’s structure. The case-studies of the Boguchan, Turukhan and Altai hydroelectric power stations show what kind of technological and economic limitations face their development. The author makes some recommendations on how to build the economic instruments to manage the development of the power industry.
Vertically integrated structures in agriculture regarded as a way to overcome the crisis phenomena
The agricultural reforms in Siberian regions have had consequences such as a drop in production and sale, a decrease in tillage quality, sown areas, crops productivity and etc. This is a result of the disintegration taking place in an agricultural complex and, first of all, a result of a law marketability of the producers. To change the situation is required to concentrate resources and to build large vertically integrated structures which include all stages of production from building a resource base to selling final goods. For example, in the Altai Krai 7,1% of the agricultural enterprises, which till 9,5% agricultural land, are included in the integration processes. These enterprises provide 9% of jobs in the regional agricultural sector and sell 11% of the agricultural product in the krai. More than 70% of enterprises have become profitable.
Problems of tariff policy in municipal units
The housing and communal services tariffs existed during the last 15 years were much lower than those calculated on the base of costs. A comparative analysis of the tariffs for population shows their differentiation. The paper states that the necessity to provide the citizens with the proper communal services and to develop a housing and communal sector in future will stimulate the authorities to review the regulations and guidelines in this sphere and to implement a public program to modernize an available housing and a communal services infrastructure of cities. The article describes the approaches to developing the economically reasonable tariffs.
Technique for distribution of regional financial support funds among municipal units in Yakutia
The article describes the output of the research on ways of forming the revenues of municipal units in the Cakha Republic (Yakutia). Most municipalities in this region have a budget deficit. One of the sources of its covering is the grants from regional budgets. The article offers a formalized approach to a distribution of such grants. The authors propose a technique for the distribution of financial support for municipal units from the Regional Fund of Financial Support. The distribution criteria include a tax potential and an index of the budgetary expenditures in each municipal unit. The appliance of the technique has shown the way to optimize the expenditures of local budgets and to stimulate the development of a taxable base.
Autonomies in Northern Canada and Russia: a comparative analysis
Despite their different histories, Canada and Russia face a number of similar challenges in terms of developing their northern regions. In addition, both countries must find ways to involve the indigenous inhabitants of their northern regions in the decision-making and governance processes. The article gives an analysis of the changing patterns of Northern aboriginal autonomy in Canada and Russia within their federal systems, considers the similarities and differences between models of autonomy in both countries. The author makes up a conclusion that while the Canadian and Russian federal systems seem to be moving in different directions, the political-territorial changes that are currently taking place in the northern regions of these two countries suggest a certain degree of institutional convergence.
Coordination of corporate, federal and regional interests in selecting a rout of Eastern pipe-lines
The article offers a methodology for selecting economic tools to coordinate federal, corporate and regional interests in the process of selecting a route for the “Eastern Siberia – the Pacific Ocean” oil pipeline. The building of the oil pipeline is regarded as an integrated infrastructural project to develop the hydrocarbon resources in Eastern Siberia and the Saha (Yakutia) Republic, which is supposed to cause a multiplicative effect on the economic development of the Siberian and Far-Eastern Federal Districts. The indicators assessing the effectiveness of the project and the regional economic growth multipliers are to be used to identify and coordinate the interests of governments and other stakeholders. The article proposes the concessions to be used as a tool to coordinate the interests and activity of the government and the companies involved in the pipeline construction.
Kharitonova V. N. kharit@ieie.nsc.ru
