Home – Home – Jornals – Region: Economics and Sociology 2011 number 2

The paper considers trends and perspectives of spatial transformations taken place in the Russian economic space. The tasks of the strategic spatial development in Russia are formulated here.

The criticism of inter-sectoral models made under a «dinosaurs become extinct» slogan proves to be groundless. The paper presents the information about the inter-sectoral models of spatial development worked out and applied by IEIE SB RAS. A special focus is on new elements, i.e. innovations, included into such models which allow extending a research sphere of economic spatial structures.

There are some new elements in modeling a Russian transport space. The first one is the fact that a core transport network model, which includes different transports competed with each other, is applied, and the second one - how it is applied, i.e. through adding geo-information technologies with visualization of input-output data, which allows simultaneous operation of many users and their more active participation in the analysis and comparison of different hypotheses about the transport development in the country.

Intergovernmental relations could be regarded as an integral component of the social and economic life of any country and its budget system. In the author's opinion, how such relations may develop depends on the key factors: at what stage of democratization the country is; how effective the federal relations and targeting are; and whether governments are sufficiently provided with resources.
Keywords: intergovernmental relations, democratization, federalism, targeting, budget authorities

The paper analyzes a range of regional indicators and composite indices characterizing the development in the subjects of the Russian Federation over 2000-2007 and 2008-2010. We offer a technique based on the spatial and temporal laws of socio-economic development and designated for building generalized curves (genotypes) to describe regional development. We also present our forecasts of how the RF multiregional system could develop within the context of the given genetic scenario.

The paper shows that the mathematical tools of Voronoi diagrams, previously used only in natural sciences, may be used in economic studies too. We analyze how such Voronoi diagrams may correspond with the political division of any RF subject, distribution of powers in branches of a large corporation, and dynamics of the demographic potential.

The paper compares the data of the representative opinion polls carried out in the USA, the EU and Russia concerning the issues of how the world crisis of 2008-2009 influenced the life of individuals and their families. We can state that labour problems were experienced by the people from all the said countries. In Russia, in comparison with the USA, it is the people's everyday consumption that the crisis affected substantially since most of the Russian households had had practically no assets or market involvement. Our main conclusion is that the systemic weaknesses of the economy but not the crisis entail such problems.

The data of the public opinion poll carried out in the Belgorod Oblast shows a character of mutual assistance networks of the community. Social capital, i.e. informal relationships, is intensively used by the population of this region to solve their different vital problems. Mutual assistance practices are widely spread among relatives and good friends and less - among colleges and neighbours. Social resources of the non-governmental, religious and clannishness' associations are minimally popular with the population. Different labour assistances dominate such mutual assistance networks. The significant shares of psychological and informational support as well as a moneyed assistance are observed.

We analyze the state of the population's moral health in the North-East Federal District, and we assess the indices of moral and socio-psychological health of the society. The regions which proved to be the leaders according to such indices are identified. We also analyze how economic factors and corruption influence the population's moral health.

The paper identifies the alternative perspectives of how the reform of the Russian rail transport may progress and what efficiency could be expected if such alternatives are implemented.

The paper presents a concept of building new centers of oil, gas, gas-chemical and helium industry in Eastern Siberia and Russian Far East. A hydrocarbon base and the dynamics of the oil and gas produced in by the regions under study and different companies as well are described. We also assessed the parameters of how the processing and transportation infrastructures could develop, and what governmental support and conditions are required to implement such investment projects.

An official assessment of the quality and volume of the Russian forest resources would promote governmental regulation of the timber processing complex. Even an initial step in such regulation - increased export duties for roundwood - impacted negatively having made the timber harvesting in the Eastern regions unprofitable. However, according to the customs statistics, no export structural changes have been observed. We can state that implementation of the projects which became "priority ones" due to a favourable access to resources may results in the relative overproduction of cellulose and its market difficulties. New timber processing technologies could change the structure of current competitive advantages in the world's timber processing complex.

The paper proves that natural capital depletion should be taken into account in assessing a level of regional economic development. The problems of correcting GRP are discussed. We present our cost estimates of environmental damage caused by economic activity and experienced by Russia and the regions of the Siberian Federal Region. Our estimates were made on the base of a cost approach.

We validate our approaches to how subsidies aimed at budgetary equalization should be allocated. For this purpose we present our experimental calculations on the base of the economic-mathematical model. Such calculations made for the Novosibirsk Oblast allowed us to compare the existing method of governmental support with ours.

The paper identifies the indices of how information and communications technologies are used by local authorities and other municipal institutions. The values of such indices are calculated for some city districts and municipalities of the Altay Krai. We show the difference between the application of the information and communications technologies by city districts and other municipalities in an agro-industrial region through using the data for the Altay Krai. The measures undertaken by the Altay Krai authorities to overcome such differences are presented.

The paper analyzes the human capital and employment of the urban population in Canada. The paper shows the disparities characterizing the employment structures of aboriginal and non-aboriginal populations; it also analyzes the age-and-gender differences, and the gaps existing between different aboriginal communities. The authors' recommendations made to the agencies involved in the governmental programs on how to improve the employment of the aboriginal population are presented.

The paper analyzes the data of current statistics provided by the Federal Statistics Service of the Russian Federation. There were the economic drop observed in the development of different groups of the RF regions and different economic activities over 2008-2010. The assessment of scales of regional growth and recovery periods are also presented.

The structure of tourist products consumed by travelers from the Primorsky Krai (Russian Federation) to China is under study in this paper. We used the data of the consumer's questionnaire survey and our own technique for such data collecting and processing. The experience of operation the touristic firms located in the Primorsky Krai and specialized in tours to China is generalized.