The article considers historical development and scientific achievements of informational approach in economic theory. The author’s research is devoted to different versions of economic analysis using theory of asymmetric information. Positive and normative contradictions emerging from differences between economics of information and neoclassical theory are examined. Special attention is paid to internal problems of the new paradigm as well as to the role of state-governed economic policy based on theoretical implications of informational approach.

     The article discusses one of the fundamental problems of economic science — the problem of measuring dynamics of inflation and real product. It is argued that the conventional approach according to which inflation can be measured with so called general price index is theoretically unsound because it contradicts the essence of money as the universal measure of value of commodities and services. Inflation as a money phenomenon must be measured not with general but with particular price index, which determines movement of prices in the group of commodities and services, the needs in which have reached the level of saturation. This result is especially topical under acceleration of the quality change growth in the economy.

     This paper attempts to survey the history of inflation. The author finds that the definition and nature of inflation develop over time. Among other things, he reviews inflation during the period of classical gold standard, first examples of hyperinflation, and macroeconomic characteristics of inflation in XX century.

     The author uses microeconomic approach to compare optimal price, input and output quantity setting for a firm in a competitive industry and with market power. Revealed profit maximization principle is applied to draw a conclusion that production technology plays a fundamental role in cost determination for a monopoly and a competitive firm. Production technology is a key factor that promotes both centrifugal, contending and centripetal, integrative trends in a modern economy.

     The paper is devoted to the role of the global financial market in the development of Russian big business. It proves that terms and standards posed by this market as well as opportunities it offers determine major changes in Russian big business in the last three years. The article examines why Russian companies go abroad to attract capital and provides data, which indicate the scope of this phenomenon. It stresses the effects of Russian big business’s interaction with the world capital market, including the modification of the principal subject of Russian big business from integrated business groups to companies and the changes in companies’ behavior: they gradually move away from the so-called Russian specifics and adopt global standards.

     The author argues that the key criterion of CSR is partial substitution of market-based relations and incentives for non-market cooperation among all kinds of stakeholders in the reproduction behavior of the firm. On the basis of this criterion three levels of CSR are distinguished and the specifics of CSR in the Russian context is highlighted. It is shown that the lack of state social expenditures and the coherent system of benefits for socially responsible firms coupled with dominating paternalistic relations hinder the development of socially responsible behavior above the basic level.

     The parameters of the Russian market of business corruption are studied in the article. Comparative historical analysis of corruption practice in Russia is presented. A correlation model of corruption interaction of an economic agent with a bureaucrat is proposed. The authors offer an approach to modeling entrepreneurs’ shadow economic activities taking into account corruption costs. The ways of achieving anticorruption consensus between business and authorities are considered.

     Taking Kemerovo Region as an example, the article describes the existing model of institutional structure of interaction between authorities and business in the Russian economy. It shows that the current model of their relationships has inherited the attributes of the Soviet-era economic institutions. It also reveals reasons of economy’s deformalization. The authors point out that the “grey” zone of interaction between authorities and business is the result of the rules’ deformalization process, a set of institutions, which regulate the “additional financing of regions” by business funds. The article also describes reasons and main signs of rules’ deformalization in interaction between authorities and business at the regional and municipal levels as well as interests and positions of the interested parties in this process.

     The article investigates the perspectives of innovation economy development in Russia. The author comes to the conclusion that the Russian economy contains the system of institutional limitations, making it unreceptive to the innovational path of development. The solution of the problem is possible only within the general concept of “innovational spurt” of the economy. The article considers possible directions of innovation sphere financing, the participation of RF regions in innovation processes and the reform of innovation statistics.