Home – Home – Jornals – ECO journal (ECOnomics and industrial Engineering) 2019 number 5

The article identifies and quantifies the main features of the modern territorial structure of the economy and population of the Baikal region: latitudinal zonality, meridional west-east asymmetry, gravitation toward main traffic arteries, localization of the industrial potential within territorial-production complexes, and concentration around chief towns and urban agglomerations (core-periphery contrasts), the difference between “Russian” and “non-Russian” (“ethnic”) regions. We established principal trends in transformation of this structure in the post-Soviet stage: the shift of industry to peripheral regions and strengthening of its resource and raw material specialization, domonation of large capital in the region and property redistribution between private all-Russian companies and state corporations of our country, strengthening of inter-municipal central-peripheral polarization of settlements with growing regional centers and their immediate environment. We consider opportunities for a breakthrough in the economic development of the region during the implementation of the project “Nоvyi Angarstroi”.

The article investigates the current state and development opportunities of the forest complex of the Far East as a possible industry of global specialization. Two essential factors are considered for their influence on the forest complex - the institutions and the external demand. It is demonstrated that public industrial support for development of high added value production is getting more restrained. As the region became the object of special attention from the federal center, regional support is generally provided to large businesses. It is revealed that external demand is ever more oriented to the Chinese market both in timber trade and investment participation. It is shown that the prospects of forest complex development in the Far East are connected with creation of a pulp and paper mill where institutional and external factors converge the most.

The purpose of this work is to analyze the dynamics of some socio-economic processes to assess changes in the social sphere in the sub-federal units of the Russian Federation of the South of the Far East and the Baikal region after the reforms that began in connection with the implementation of the “May decrees” of the President in 2012. According to the Romer-Lucas model, the increase in knowledge and the quality of human capital are key conditions for the development of territories in the long term, so the state of health and education is one of the most important factors in solving geopolitical problems in the East of the country. The calculations showed that the reform in the social sphere did not bring the expected positive results either in the context of the individual welfare of workers, or in terms of increasing the availability of education and health services, at least in the public sector. This is equally true for those border regions where new measures of institutional transformation have taken place - that is, in the South of the Far East, and for the Baikal region “not covered” by these measures. The results confirmed the thesis that in the regional policy in the East it is important to focus not so much on the volume as on the quality of investments: to what extent they contribute to the improvement of the basic conditions that determine the improvement of the quality of life of citizens.

This article studies the dynamics of ecological and economic development of the Far East regions and sub-federal units of the Baikal region in the context of new institutions being formed in the East of the country. For each region and the Russian Federation, per capita indicators of economic development and environmental pressure were calculated for the following periods: 2009-2012 and 2012-2016. To study the relationship between economic growth and environmental pollution we calculated a decoupling index (Dt). The study revealed inequality in the ecological and economic development of the analyzed regions: in 2016, the difference in per capita GRDP between the territories with maximum and minimum values was almost 5-fold. Significant differences between regions are also noted in terms of a negative impact on the environment. Our results show that in most of the Eastern regions the effect of decoupling is evident relative to the discharge of polluted wastewater and air polluting emissions from stationary sources. It is concluded that institutional changes in accordance with the new model of development of the Far East have not yet had a significant positive impact on the environmental and economic development indicators of the analyzed regions.

The article reviews problems of managing ecological and socio-economic development of the Baikal natural territory (BNT). Exclusion of the Baikal region from objects of strategic planning in the state regional policy according to the new spatial development strategy and assignment of its subjects to different federal districts raised new challenges for improving the integrated system of regulating environmental and socio-economic activities in the BNT. The predominance of the departmental approach to decision-making on key problems of the PBT at the federal level leads to a priority of prohibitive measures and insufficient consideration of local specifics. The interrelatedness of the economies of the Irkutsk region and Buryatia as a joint Baikal natural-technical system requires management of environmental protection and sustainable development at the interregional level. The authors propose recommendations to organize an interregional and interdepartmental management body with functions in the new zoning framework. Consideration is given to an organization structure of interregional and interdepartmental management body and its possible functions in the new pattern of zoning.

Platform models of business are considered to be an important element of digital economy. They deal with transformation and disruption of many industries, competition changes and growth factors of companies. Multi-agent platforms with several types of participants and complex cooperation are more complicated and more attractive for innovative development. They comprise a system of dissemination and consumption of platform products, supplementary product development, processes of joint creation of values and joint utilization of platform assets. The paper deals with methodological aspects of multi-agent platform creation. Most attention is paid to these three key elements: platform participants, their roles and cooperation; platform thinking; approaches to platform activity monetization. The author presents a platform formation matrix that includes main types of participants and aspects of platform cooperation.

The article undertakes to identify general laws of the market of cargo services performed by passenger flights, as well as its specific Russian features. The main target of the authors’ research was to separate a segment of ‘way’ cargo transported by passenger flights within the general structure of the air cargo market in order to study its qualitative and quantitative characteristics. Based on the industry statistics data, the authors studied the market segment of way cargo through a number of criteria: a type of market structure and a type of aircraft used, the total demand for cargo capacity, geographical characteristics of flights performed in the Russian Federation, and analyzed specific interactions between participants in this market. The cargo potential and the structure of the Russian market of air cargo services were evaluated with account to the industry features that affect interpretation of statistical data. The paper demonstrates existence of quantitative and qualitative interactions between the passenger and cargo components of regular passenger flights, as well as the impact of presence/absence of wide-body vessels on the cargo potential of a passenger airline. The authors discovered that most Russian air carriers are not sufficiently effective in utilizing their potential way cargo capacity on passenger flights.

The US, Canada and the UK face global surplus of oil production and refinery capacity, large sovereign debt and fiscal consolidation in 2015-18. The article analyses special features of fiscal relations with oil industry faces in those countries, which may be useful for Russia. The research method of the article is a review of budgetary revenue structures, tax regimes, lists and effects of tax stimuli and budgetary subsidies for oil industry from publications of budgetary and tax authorities, nongovernmental and international organizations. The research highlights, that the tax structure on oil in analyzed countries is similar to Russia. The consolidated budget of Canada depends on oil revenues similarly to the Russian one, of the UK and the US - several times less. The total tax burden per barrel of crude oil or gasoline is 2 times higher in Russia than in the US, especially due to higher excise taxes on gasoline. Canada and the UK tax oil excavation less than gasoline consumption - significantly more than Russia, with some subsidies to vulnerable consumers. Investment tax credit and accelerated depreciation dominate among tax stimulus. Budgetary subsidies target few relatively small projects by royalty reductions, share capital investments and export financing. The US and Canada have no VAT, the UK provides zero VAT rate for export oriented oil refineries, without such payments and refunding as in Russia. The article concludes that Russian oil tax maneuver follows the three countries’ practices, and Russian excise taxes on gasoline should be twice higher than the 2018 level. With high tax burden and surplus oil production, the countries had to invent new stimulus for their oil industry, such as financial sanctions against Russian competition.

The article deals with longevity of people living in a low-populated northern region. There has been a shift in gender and territorial indicators due to active migration of the elderly from the country to urban settlements. The authors review average life expectancy of people who have reached retirement age, pointing out increased probability of reaching an advanced age with persisting gender differences. The authors argue that one of factors contributing to longevity of the Yakut people is consumption of traditional meat products from horse meat (flesh of colt). It was pointed out that the source of unique meat composition of the Yakut horse, affecting longevity, is the feed frozen by natural cold (cryo-feed) with a high content of essential fatty acids. Conducted field studies demonstrated that the content of linoleic acid increased by 2.1 times, and α-linolenic acid by 1.8 times in the cryo-feed compared with their respective summer levels. The economic background of green cryo-feed use is presented as a basis for increasing the nutritional value of the Yakut horse meat.

Victor Nikolayevich Bogachev, a deputy editor-in-chief of ECO journal, borrowed the phrase ‘scientific professor’ in one of the articles sent to the journal for publication from a republic of the Soviet Union. He went on to prefix it with a title ‘Mr’ and used it jokingly for self-introduction. Behind his back, his colleagues referred to him in the same manner, not as a form of slight but with respect and admiration. V.N. Bogachev worked in the journal for 18 months only but it was the crucial period of take-off when a new style of description and analysis of surrounding economic events and processes was born and refined. This May, 2019 he would have been 90 years old.

An outstanding Soviet economist V. N. Bogachev, would have been 90 this year. He managed the “ECO” journal from the very beginning of its publication. He influenced the style and forged the orientation of the journal publications. This article is a reprint (with some abridgement) of his article from the 6th issue of “ECO” of 1989. It is remarkable in conveying the spirit of polemics of that perestroika time between scientists who pondered the question of where and how to direct the development of the economy and the society of the Soviet Union. Viktor Nikolaevich thought about specific issues, sharply and even sarcastically criticizing the economic illiteracy of the authorities, who made absurd decisions on price and income policy, and about fundamental problems, the relevance of which, paradoxically, has not faded with time, but is becoming ever more acute and painful. Being ahead of many of his contemporaries in understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the economic science, he called for reasonable restraint in the import of “advanced” ideas of Western economic liberalism and at the same time demanded a full, integrated use of the Russian economic science with its rich heritage of such classics as K. Veksel and R. Houtri, J. M. Keynes and M. riedman. This article reflects many thoughts of this great economist.