• P. Klyukin — F. Quesnay’s Intellectual Development (1736–1756) in Connection with the Metaphysics of «Évidence» and Political Economy
• F. Quesnay — Introduction to Volume I of «Memoirs of Royal Surgical Academy» (1743)

• G. Popov — On the 2008 Economic Crisis

• K. Arystanbekov — The Quality of Kazakhstan’s Economic Policy and Balance of Payments

• A. Shastitko — Global Financial Crisis — An Opportunity to Repair Institutions?
• R. Isyanov — The Agrarian Sector in a Market Economy

• Russian Corporation: Internal Organization, External Interactions, Prospects of Development / T. G. Dolgopyatova, I. Ivasaki, A. A. Yakovlev (eds.)
• Buzdalov I. N. Selected Works: In 3 Vols.

Abstracts

Aggravation of the crisis in the western economies has led to dramatic changes in the world financial system. As a result, the regulatory approaches of major industrial countries have been significantly modified even in the spheres that were not subject to change for many years (as was the case with some segments of monetary policy). At the same time new sources of risks to be reckoned with have emerged. The forecasts of some future developments as well as suggestions about necessary steps to strengthen the Russian economy in conditions of global instability are presented.

Main factors and development of the global financial crisis-2008 are generally discussed in the paper. The downturn in one of the local sectors of the US economy has caused major threats to functioning global financial markets. Structural problems of the Russian financial sector ("illusion of adequacy") have greatly enhanced negative consequences of the global crisis for the Russian economy. On the global level, main steps to minimize the costs of the crisis should deal with limiting protectionism growth, coordinating measures of economic policy and preventing a hard landing of a large group of economies.

The ongoing financial crisis has attracted economists’ attention to the problem of explaining its nature and offering ways of overcoming it. French regulationism is analyzed in the article as a school of economic thought developing its own approach to the institutional analysis of systemic qualities of the world economy. The article considers French regulationists’ views on the contemporary tendencies in the development of financial sector, on the changes in its role in the global institutional system of a modern society. It is shown how evolution of pension funds has led to prevalence of logic of the financial market in the global economic system, which resulted in the inevitability of the financial crisis.

The article analyzes the main stages of establishment and development of Law and Economics. The history of the discipline has had a considerable impact on its current state: today Law and Economics comprises different schools and approaches. On the one hand, the competition of approaches within the single discipline has broadened its scope, but on the other hand, it has intensified contradictions between the approaches and complicated the choice of methodological framework for the analysis. The differences between various approaches are explained basing on the example of the economic analysis of contract law.

We study hiring decisions made by competing universities in a dynamic framework, focusing on the structure of university finance. Universities with annual state-approved financing underinvest in high-quality faculty, while universities that receive a significant part of their annual income from returns on endowments hire fewer but better faculty and provide long-term contracts. If university financing is linked to the number of students, there is additional pressure to hire low-quality short-term staff. An increase in the university’s budget might force the university to switch its priorities from "research" to "teaching" in equilibrium. We employ our model to discuss the necessity for state-financed endowments, and investigate the political economics of competition between universities, path-dependence in the development of the university system, and higher-education reform in emerging market economies.

In the article, dedicated to 250-years anniversary of the first version of «Tableau économique», the logic of F. Quesnay’s (1694–1774) early thought is investigated. The need to fill the gap in such analysis is stipulated both by the state of affairs in present-day historiography of physiocracy and analytics and by the logic of development of political economy from Marx, pre-revolutionary Russian thought (including S. A. Podolinsky) up to P. Sraffa. In treating Quesnay’s article «Évidence» (1756) as a key point of his metaphysics, the author concludes that there is a surprising similarity of Quesnay’s metaphysics and Kant’s epistemology in his «Critique of Pure Reason». This specifies a route of further research in political economy as a science.

The classical text, written by the founder of physiocracy in 1743, which is published in Russian for the first time, explicates his general scientific method in a wide perspective. Quesnay fruitfully applied his method that consisted of two interconnected elements (observation and physical experience) in metaphysics and political economy. Using this method in the «Introduction», Quesnay attempted to reveal the general scientific basis of surgery, or «art to cure», and therefore severely criticized many medical and philosophical techniques widely accepted among his contemporaries.

The article studies the nature of the global 2008 crisis and its factors. It considers the measures aimed at its overcoming and suggests some measures for solving global problems.

Kazakhstan’s economic policy in 1996–2007, its character and the degree of responsibility, the correlation between economic development and balance of current accounts are considered in the article. Special attention is paid to the analysis of their macroeconomic efficiency. It is concluded that in conditions of high rates of economic growth in Kazahkstan in 2000–2007 the net profits of foreign investors are 10–11% of GDP every year. The tendency of negative balance of current accounts in favor of foreign investors is also analyzed.