Content №3 от 2008
Net savings as an indicator of the sustainable regional development
The paper is devoted to the question of whether a true-savings index – a sustainable development indicator - well known in western scientific publications, could be applied to assessing the sustainability of regional development. The author made an effort, through a case-study for the Samara Oblast, to measure a real speed of national saving after deduction of human investments, depletion of physical capital, natural resources and diseconomies of environment pollution.
Regional touristic projects: optimizing their investment structure
The paper considers an optimization model of plannig the investments made into a regional touristic complex. A criterion for choosing an effective plan is based on synergistic effect. One of the advantages of such model is the fact that a criterion function and a set of constraints are represented as linear functions that allows solving a problem of rather high dimensionality.
Regional markets: theoretical issues of their study
The paper analyzes methodological issues of how regional markets develop, the role which they play in regional economy as well as spatial, institutional and reproduction aspects of the structures of such markets. The author, having analyzed different theories of regional markets, validates the approaches to a concept of the regional market development which allows coordinating interests of governments and businesses.
Regional industrial policy: assessing the coordination of economic interests of players
The paper analyzes how and to what degree the economic interests of regional governments and businesses are coordinated in a region. We showed the necessity to develop instruments for quantitative estimation of regional economic interests, and proposed the approach based on the mathematical tools of rank statistics and a data base provided by regional bodies of federal statistics. As well we presented a technique to assess to what degree the economic interests of subjects of regional industrial policy are coordinated.
New stage of debates about federalism in Russia
The paper analyzes major opinions and evaluations of Russian experts in regional policy and federate relations concerning the issue of what model of federalism would be appropriate to Russia and what impact it would have on the spatial development of the country. As the analysis shows, the experts’ opinions are mostly defined by their evaluations of how advanced the political institutions of federalism are and to what extent they are effective. Most experts consider essential, and even inevitable, the decision making to be decentralized and the independence of regions, and municipal units to be extended.
Ratings of RF units: methodical issues of their assessment
The paper considers methodical issues of how to assess regional ratings. To illustrate this problem, the ratings of the regions of the Siberian Federal District are presented. The author proves his choice of a two-phase and two-criterion technique to assess ratings as well as to make “soft”, i.e. grouped ratings. However a basic argument is beyond the technique and consists in idea to apply more flexible criteria to assess the quality of governance in RF units.
A coal-mining region in the post restructuring period
The paper considers what brought to economic crisis of the coal industry in the eastern part of the Donets Basin, and describes major ways of restructuring this industry. The development trends of such depressed region and the factors providing socio-economic stabilization are also shown.
Prospects in the development of Siberian forestry in the context of changing foreign market environment
The paper analyzes how the changes in Russian foreign trade policy influence on the situation in a forestry complex of a macroregion (a case-study for Siberia). We focused on the market of China considered as a major trade partner of Siberia. We also analyzed the supply-and-demand equilibrium of Chinese lumber market and the relatively static influence of tariff rates on the volume of forestry export, and showed the effective and ineffective mechanisms for the limber export management. We present the assessment of one of the housing industries – industry of wooden houses, and consider its development as a promising variant for Russia if the protectionist trade policy continues.
Theory of institutional transformations and role of a state in modern economy
The author analyzes how the role which governmental authorities play in national economy recently changed that resulted in emergence of a new institutional system. The theory of institutional transformations provides for the ideas that economic efficiency is in balance with principles of social justice and this balance is based on such institutional system where market mechanisms are combined with distributing ones that allows higher development of human potential of the country and which has shaped dually: the western market economy modified into “social market” since XX century and Russian distributing economy – into “a liberal distributing system” since 2000.
Demographic safety in Russia and its regions: factors, problems and indicators
The paper shows how the analysis of demographic safety could help in identifying the conditions necessary to neutralize present demographic threats and to prevent new ones. We presented here a classification of demographic threats for Russia, most crucial impacts of such threats, indicators and their threshold levels which could be computed on the base of federal regional statistics both for Russia or any region. Such indicators allow diagnosing the demographic sphere and could be considered as benchmarks in the development and implementation of federal or regional demographic policies.
Economic and statistical analysis of the agrarian development in Russia (on data of censuses and current statistics)
The paper considers the agricultural development in Siberia over long time horizon. We used the archival data of the agricultural censuses of 1917 and 1920 for Siberia, current statistics and preliminary data of the Russian Agricultural Census 2006. This allowed us to show positive and destructive periods in the development of agriculture in Siberia. Our special focus was the reforms of the 1990th when Siberian communities had suffered the greatest damage ever seen in the history of this sector. We also formulated present problems of rural communities and quantified them.
Circumpolar Trunk Railway: analysis of internal and external effects
The paper discusses the issues of construction of the Circumpolar Trunk Railway. The urgency of this project is caused by the necessity to develop the Russian North Pacific Shelf. The alternative transportation variants are also considered. Applying the theory of the decision making under uncertainty and an indefinite sets technique, we proved that the construction of the trunk railway is a preferable variant.
Forecasting the demand for energy sources in balance with their prices
The paper gives a methodical approach to assessment of the demand for fuel and energy made within the framework of the development of long-term strategies for the fuel and energy complex in Russia and its macroregions. Special attention is given to the price elasticity of demand for energy sources since it is vital to be included in strategies as a price and demand do depend on each other in any market economy. This approach was applied to assessment of the demand for gas in eastern regions of the country.
Galperova Ie. V. galper@isem.sei.irk.ru
Principles of public audit of local governments
The paper analyzes the principles and approaches to organization of the public audit of local governments being made by applying such criteria as the resulting effect indices and public opinions on quality of services these local governments provide.
Assessing the efficiency of the development management in municipal units (case-study for Altai Krai)
The paper describes a technique to evaluate how efficient the socio-economic development management is in a municipal unit. The technique is based on comparative estimations of the socio-economic development management in different municipal unit within a region. A case-study for the Altai Krai made by applying this technique, and the results obtained are presented in the paper.
New in regional studies published in English
We analyze what new has been observed in the regional studies bibliography compiled in the EconLit Internet-catalogue. The novelty criteria applied are the absolute and comparative growths of publications of all kinds and the number of new interdisciplinary publications concerning regional issues. We proposed a technique to identify new areas of regional studies through the analysis of intensity of the publication activity and of how often the software utilities were applied to textural-morphological analysis or works with bibliographic data bases.
Lychagin M. V. lychagin@nsu.ru
