Home – Home – Jornals – Region: Economics and Sociology 2012 number 1

The paper considers issues concerning the techniques allowing correct assessment of how effective the regional and municipal authorities operate. We present our general considerations whether such assessments could be applicable for more detailed matters of evaluation - such as separate duties or powers - and to what degree they really influence the parameters of local situations under the context of existing resources and all-out dependence on national policies, law, and etc. We criticize both current assessment techniques and practices of distribution and redistribution of regional and local powers. We also show the problems and possibilities of applying the results of pollings to the operation of authorities.

The paper analyzes such issues as the objective conditions, pre-conditions and management principles of the socio-economic processes taken place in regions; basic patterns of how regional businesses interact; and methodological bases of and enhancing regional governance.

The paper analyzes how the Siberian regions react to the crisis and crisis management arrangements undertaken by the SFD authorities. Our results concern a classification and the general features of these arrangements and how effective they were.

The paper analyzes a process of building an institution of governors for subjects of the Russian Federation, and how the political changes taken place in the 2000-s influenced the GRP growth rates, in particular, when assignment of governors substituted for their election. We also analyze economic consequences of the shifting of regional authorities.

The paper considers the issues of building organizational and economic mechanisms required to strengthen a position of Siberia in the Russian economic space. Our proposals concern such issues as how to modernize the regional policy and regional strategic planning, to ensure the implementation of the Siberian Socio-Economic Development Strategy and innovations in regions, and to build economic mechanisms required for developing production in this macroregion. A special focus is the radical modernization of a Siberian resource complex.

The paper analyzes the qualitative and quantitative methods for assessing the regional innovation activity, and criteria and procedures for selecting RF regions to be governmentally supported. We present the results of our testing made according to different rating techniques, and present our proposals how to improve the methodical approaches to and statistical data on evaluation of innovation statuses of regions.

The paper analyzes the economic aspects of tax evasion among sole proprietors. We identify what specifics of individual entrepreneurship may determine such evasion, and we show a scale of tax evasion observed in the Irkutsk Oblast. To reduce such evasion, we present our recommendations on taxation improvements.

The paper analyzes the dynamics and regional structure of taxes paid by the Siberian Federal District in 2004-2008. We show that regional differentiation of the tax indices per capita observed at the stage of economic growth proved to be stable (except a shock of 2006), and therefore, a type of the regional development should be regarded as neutral. We can conclude that Siberian regions overcome the crises much faster that the country in whole.

We identify and analyze objectives and indicators of a regional birthrate policy as well as experience of the Russian regions in building managerial and legal grounds of this policy. We can conclude that there is a need to harmonize the arrangements made at the national and regional levels in this sphere.

We analyze the topical issues of mutual influence of the economy and population ageing taken place in the Russian regions. We formulate the basic arrangements the government should make towards the elderly people in the context of economic globalization and an increased influence of economic factors on the shifting age structure of the population.

We identify a notion of an electronic waiting list. We show what advantages one would possess applying modern information technologies for waiting list management to customer service systems, and what barriers impede the progress of an electronic waiting list market in Russia. We assess the perspectives of applying such electronic waiting lists by organizations having mass and complicated customer flows. We also calculate an optimal number of providers and a cost-loss ratio on which one could be oriented in building customer service systems. An operating mode of such customer service systems could be regarded optimal if total time inputs of both providers and customers are minimal over a certain time period.

Presenting the economic-mathematical estimation of innovation activity taken place in the subjects of the Russian Federation, the author shows that both innovation space and innovation activity in the Russian regions proved to be heterogeneous.

The paper describes the problems and contradictions of the current techniques for assessing effectiveness of regional bodies of executive authority. We show that such techniques allow introducing new instruments for regional support, on the one hand, and do not allow the monitoring of regional changes, on the other hand. We present our proposals on how to improve the techniques.

The paper analyzes how the regions of the Siberian Federal District implement the administrative reform, and what shortcomings and problems are observed in providing public and municipal services at the level of the units of the Russian Federation. We can conclude that there is a necessity to improve federal laws in relation to such issues as formulating registers of public services and duties, making government contracts, and providing public and municipal services on the base of multifunctional centers and in electronic forms.

The paper shows, applying data concerning the Novosibirsk Oblast, what mechanisms a concept the Russian administrative reform provided for to implement each area of this reform. We also show the problems which impede the reform progress in regions. In our opinion, a sectoral approach to assess the efficiency of governmental expenditures for health care and education made in regions proved to be ineffective, and we present our considerations on how to improve this.

The paper analyzes the strategic planning practiced by municipalities. We show and assess what risk factors are if municipal strategic plans would be developed and applied. We offer our approach which allows foreseeing the risks and reliability of municipal strategic planning.

The paper offers a technique to assess regional appreciations in a multi-regional socio-economic system. This technique is based on the specially prepared arrays of regional indicators. Empirical estimations are calculated for federal districts and 30 macro-regions of Russia. We present our recommendations on applying this technique to make predictive calculations of how the special structure of the Russian economy could develop.