• V. Tambovtsev — Public Goods and Public Interests: Is There a Connection?
• M. Ostrovnaya, E. Podkolzina — Auction Inefficiency and the Ways to Overcome Restrictions of Competition in Public Procurement
• S. Kirdina, A. Rubinstein — The Effects of Path Dependence and Economy of Scale in Russian Legislature
• A. Degtyarev, R. Malikov, K. Grishin — Institutional Configurations of Regional Business Environment: Projection Parameters
• A. Vilenskiy — State Support for Small and Medium-sized Businesses in the Second Period of Grunderzeit in Modern Russia

• S. Andryushin — Perspectives on Inflation Targeting Regime in Russia
• R. Lomivorotov — Impact of External Shocks and Monetary Policy on Russian Economy

• L. Evstigneeva, R. Evstigneev — The Contours of a New Economic Space

• Popov Vladimir. Mixed Fortunes: An Economic History of China, Russia, and the West

Abstracts

Global crisis forms new economic policy agenda which raises new questions for economic theory and economic thinking. The paper deals with these new intellectual challenges. Among them: growth theory and ricks of secular stagnation, unconventional macroeconomic policy and risk of financial stability, inequality and growth, new welfare state, prospects of globalization vs. deglobalization, and prospects of reindustrialization in advanced economies.

JEL: F63, O52, P17, P27.
Keywords: economic growth, system crisis, globalization, economic policy.

The paper is aimed to analyze the validity of statements encountering in the literature that the content of objective public interests are public and merit goods, and that features of these ones determinate the necessity of public budgeting for these goods’ provision. The history of the aforementioned notions and their role in the public finance theory development are analyzed. It is shown that the linkage between public goods and public interests is postulated but its practical verifications are absent.

JEL: D72, H11, H41, H42, H50.
Keywords: public goods, merit goods, public interests.

Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) is responsible for controlling the level of competition in the Russian economy, in particular, in public procurement. Antitrust enforcement does not increase competition in this sphere and instead often leads to higher prices. In this article we analyze the reasons for favoritism in St. Petersburg drug procurement and main actions against restrictions of competition. We show that weak sanctions of the FAS cannot break illegal long-term relations between public procurer and affiliated bidder.

JEL: H57, L44.
Keywords: antitrust enforcement, public procurement, public sector.

The paper presents the results of the regular monitoring of the legislative process in the Russian Federation, which is carried out at the Institute of Economics, RAS since 2008. An original database of Russian federal (federal constitutional) laws’ attributes ‘LAWSTREAM.RU’ (open access www.inecon.ru & www.kirdina.ru) is used. The database is formed on the basis of two open sources: the official website of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation and the online version of the legal system ‘ConsultantPlus’. It covers the period from 1994 to 2014. The average term from initiating a bill to its enactment, the type of activities that laws regulate, the structure of actors who initiated laws, the ratio of new laws and amendments to existing legislation are analyzed. Increasing returns and path dependence effects in the legislative sphere of modern Russia are presented.

JEL: B52, C49, K40, Y10.
Keywords: path dependence, increasing returns, legislative process, Russia.

The article considers some issues of institutional support for developing regional business environment as the basis of successful economic development of a region. The process of regional business environment institutions forming is analyzed using the methodology of constructing a matrix-based institutional model of entrepreneurial activities. The authors conclude that it is the institutional configuration of business environment that accounts for the existing discrepancies in the levels of social and economic development among regions. Applying the instruments of institutional projecting the authors construct models of interaction between business entities and regional authorities in the context of newly introduced rules of running a business that allows to determine the parameters of optimal institutional configurations of regional business environment.

JEL: O17, О18.
Keywords: regional business environment, institutional configurations, entrepreneurship, regional authorities.

The Russian system of state support for small and medium-sized businesses in its scope, forms and methods has reached the level of developed countries. This system has set up the basis for a new wave of small businesses foundation since 2008. But continuing increase in the amount of small businesses is going along with reduction in the volume of their activities. The support offsets the lack of space for expansion of SMEs business operations, but it is not adequate to the structure and institutional framework of the Russian economy.

JEL: J4, H5, P1.
Keywords: small enterprises, medium-sized enterprises, foundation, state economic policy, SMEs support infrastructure, deregulation, saturation level of SMEs.

The paper analyzes monetary policy of the Bank of Russia from 2008 to 2014. It presents the dynamics of macroeconomic indicators testifying to inability of the Bank of Russia to transit to inflation targeting regime. It is shown that the presence of short-term interest rates in the top borders of the percentage corridor does not allow to consider the key rate as a basic tool of monetary policy. The article justifies that stability of domestic prices is impossible without exchange rate stability. It is proved that to decrease excessive volatility on national consumer and financial markets it is reasonable to apply a policy of managing financial account, actively using for this purpose direct and indirect control tools for the cross-border flows of the private and public capital.

JEL: E52, F32.
Keywords: Bank of Russia, monetary policy, exchange rate flexibility, key rate, control of capital flows, interest rates сhannel, inflation targeting regime.

This paper investigates the impact of external and internal shocks on the Russian economy. We have factored in the U.S. monetary policy changes, dynamics of commodity prices, and volatility of global financial markets as the main sources of external shocks. We have also examined the influence of the monetary policy of the Bank of Russia, on economic growth, inflation, and ruble exchange rate.

JEL: E41, E52, E58.
Keywords: external shocks, monetary policy, inflation targeting, Bayesian vector autoregression.

Intensifying crisis of the world economy, including the Russian one, warns against using stereotypes that have not brought by now to constructive results. The paper grounds the necessity of cardinal theoretical revising the ongoing economic processes. The authors pay attention to four main items of the current economic situation that are to be solved immediately. The country must, first, consider the economy as a part of common cultural landscape. Second, it ought to use the chance for reorientation of the economy from external markets alone to creating large internal market niches. Third, it should implement the transition to quant economic growth with a notion of potential as a leading one; in the course of analyzing this problem the portion concept of electronic arc developed by academician G. Mesyats has been used. Fourth, the complication of market and changing parameters of economic space getting much more many-tier ought to be taken into account by policymakers.

JEL: A12, B41, O40, R10, Z10.
Keywords: society, regionalization, integral market multitude, potential, quant growth, explosion and chaos, regularity of macroeconomics.