Home – Home – Jornals – ECO journal (ECOnomics and industrial Engineering) 2019 number 4

The article discusses the features of the new edition of the State Program for the Development of Agriculture and Regulation of Agricultural Products, Raw Materials and Food Markets, developed in a pilot format based on project management principles. The shortcomings of the current state program in terms of the target block, structure and risk assessment of its implementation are analyzed. The author argues that the system deficiencies of the state program, as well as the whole instrument of state programs of the Russian Federation, are due to frequent revisions of the regulatory framework for the development, implementation and evaluation of the effectiveness of state programs of the Russian Federation.

The paper reviews the dynamics of rural settlement of the USSR and Russia from 1926 to 2010. Among the factors of its evolution during the Soviet period are urbanization and the policy of the Soviet government (collectivization, consolidation of collective farms, etc.). In the post-Soviet period, the principal factors are de-agrarization, a decline in the role of production and an increase in the share of “purely residential” functions of human settlements, an aging population, and an increase in recreational functions. Contrary to the established opinion, the policy of “resettlement of unpromising villages” did not have a significant impact on the rate of reduction in the number of settlements and increased outflow of population from the village. The traditional («Soviet») typology of rural settlements was based on their place in the system of collective farm production. But now the system of settlement and the territorial organization of the economy, which had almost coincided before, do not match. Therefore, the typology requires completely different indicators: the presence or absence of a resident population, its ratio to the temporary population, the presence of the working-age population and jobs.

The article deals with the impact of the Moscow agglomeration on the rural areas of the surrounding regions of the Central Federal district by various parameters related to spatial disparities in population change, economic activity, employment and mobility of the population, land use and secondary suburban development. The settlement patterns around the Moscow agglomeration and its change due to the ongoing urbanization are analyzed. The invariance of the suburban-peripheral organization of this territory is shown. The post-Soviet transformation of agriculture in Russia has led not only to shrinking land use around the Moscow agglomeration, but also to selective local developments of industrialized agriculture with a small number of employees, aimed at supplying Moscow and other large cities. At the same time, small-scale private economy with the depletion of labor potential, on the one hand, and the possibility of earnings outside agriculture, on the other, collapses. Оne of the adaptation options of the local population to unemployment in rural areas was regular labor migration to the Moscow agglomeration, which still retains the population in villages. In summer, the regions around Moscow Oblast are filled with urban residents, whose number in many areas exceeds the number of the local rural residents. The combination of the local industrial rural economy with mass development of seasonal second home recreation at this stage is the main way of development of rural areas in that large territory.

The article reviews the evolution of the system of rural self-government in Russia over the last 15 years. Following adoption in 2003 of the relevant federal law, the active institutional design of local self-government was replaced by a tendency to restrict the powers and autonomy of the municipalities - and, first of all, at the level of rural settlements closest to the population. Reduced financing of local budgets became a major factor in restricting rural development. The local self-government got introduced to the system of government as the lowest, most dependent and resource-limited level of the power hierarchy. In her field study, the author conducted interviews with heads of rural settlement administrations in Siberian regions that formed a “from bottom” view on the ongoing transformations to help understand the reaction of rural communities to changes in the external institutional environment. It is shown that the answer to the reform challenges is development of informal practices that facilitate self-organization of the population, which serves as a kind of compensatory mechanism. In such a system, the role of the heads of rural administrations considerably increases as they have to initiate and organize projects demanding complicity and solidarity of inhabitants in order to resolve common tasks.

The article compares the social worldviews of two prominent scientists of the beginning of the 20th century, Alexander Bogdanov and Alexander Chayanov, through the analysis of their utopian works, which in artistic form captured the essential features of the socio-economic and cultural-ethical views of these thinkers. It is shown that the monism of A. Bogdanov and the pluralism of A. Chayanov in many respects predetermined the ideological dominants of Bogdanov industrialism and Chayanov agrarianism.

Power industry reform is one of a few transformations in Russian economy that was sophisticated by design and went far in its implementation. Electricity and capacity wholesale market (OREM) development started competitive pricing in a sector that had being considered as demanding regulation for a long time. The practice showed effectiveness of the market procedures at OREM. Nevertheless, non-market mechanisms at OREM are pervasive, namely capacity supply agreements that guarantee rate of return to generators and orders for national power engineering industry, subsidizing some regions, etc. Cost based price formation and using power market as an instrument of industrial policy contradict the aims of the reform plan and aggravate the long-term risks for the sector as well: the market loses pricing signals, the motivation for improving efficiency may be distorted, conditions for Averch-Johnson effect are provided, the technological progress is balked.

The article presents an analysis of the state and economic policy of resource companies, constituent entities of the Federation, the influence of geopolitical risks on the efficiency of fulfilling state tasks and priorities for creating an oil and gas complex and developing petrochemical chemistry in Eastern Russia. It is proposed to consider the resource megaproject as a tool for coordinating the state policy and interests of resource companies in the formation of the East-Siberian oil and gas complex. Preconditions of cluster activation of the development of related industries and petrochemical complexes of the VOSOGK mega-project for innovative modernization of the economy of the northern and southern regions of Eastern Siberia and the Far East are analyzed.

In economics the co-production of public goods by local communities, consider quite fruitful for replacement of government failures. The article describes the practice of implementing TOS communities (Territorialnoe Obshchestvennoe Samoupravlenie) projects on co-production of social urban infrastructure. Using the cases of local communities in the city of Kirov and the data on the Russian regions, we demonstrate that the effects of co-production can be multidirectional. We found that local government usually supports TOS communities. TOS allows in terms of municipal budget deficit over the citizen’s participation in funding of infrastructural projects to solve local problems and put-off attention of political active citizens for possible protest activities. The research demonstrates that TOS occurs when three conditions (vectors) form in society: civil responsibility, civil helplessness, and paternalism. In these circumstances, the authorities encourage and subsidize the formal self-organization of citizens that capable singly and under their responsibility to solve problems to which the authorities did not get around. At the same time government is in the position of win-win, on the one hand, it “drops” their responsibilities to citizens (through TOS), and on the other hand gets support of the population. These effects demonstrated in the paper.

The article analyzes the current level and dynamics of regional disproportions in Russia. The resulting conclusion demonstrates a high level of differences in social and economic development of territorial subjects of the Russian Federation, despite some positive shifts. There is a need to reconsider public actions aimed at balanced and complex development of the regions. The author reviews positive experience of the European Union that decreased territorial disproportions in the attempt to adapt this to the Russian reality, suggesting a number of recommendations to improve the policy of spatial development in Russia. At the same time, public impact on economically weak regions needs to become a basis for change, allowing them to solve existing problems and ensure sustainable development. Results of conducted research demonstrate the relevance of territorial differentiation as well as the need to improve public policy of regional development in the Russian Federation. The results may be used by public authorities to implement measures for improved territorial development.