• L. Polishchuk, R. Menyashev — Economic Significance of Social Capital
• O. Vasilieva — Human Capital Accumulation and Resource Abundance

• P. Orekhovsky — In Memory of the Regional Khozraschyot: The Dilemmas of Russian Federalism
• N. Shumsky — Commonwealth of Independent States: The First 20 Years
• V. Selin — Present Geo-economic Positioning in the Russian Arctic
• N. Ryzhova — The Political Economy of Trade Openness Reform: Consequences of Reform for Russian Border Regions

• Ya. Pappe — The Left March on African Drums, or The Book on Economics Written by the Heart (Notes on the Margins of the Book by V. V. Popov «Strategies of Economic Development»)

Abstracts

With signs of normalization seemingly in place in the world economy, a number of problems show the possibility of aggravation in the future. The volume of derivatives in American banks grows significantly, high risk instruments are back in place and their use becomes more active, global imbalances increase. All of the above requires thorough approaches when creating mechanisms which can neutralize external shocks for the Russian economy and make it possible to develop in the new post-crisis environment.

The article analyzes the emerging markets central banks exchange rate policy, while they choose the exchange rate regime in conditions of financial globalization. The authors present the new IMF exchange rate regimes taxonomy which separates them using historical data about nominal exchange rate developments. They identify some factors which affect the exchange rate regime option from the macroeconomic point of view. The article reviews some national markets safeguard measures from external shocks generated by international capital inflow or outflow.

This paper presents the method of forecasting financial crises in developing countries based on a list of crisis indicators. It helps find critical indicators and the combination of key indicators using modern econometric modeling.

The paper deals with economics of social capital which is defined as the capacity of society for collective action in pursuit of common good. Particular attention is paid to the interaction between social capital and formal institutions, and the impact of social capital on government efficiency. Structure of social capital and the dichotomy between its «bonding» and «bridging» forms are analyzed. Social capital measurement, its economic payoff, and transmission channels between social capital and economic outcomes are discussed. In the concluding section of the paper we summarize the results of our analysis of the role of social capital in economic conditions and welfare of Russian cities.

Does resource abundance positively affect human capital accumulation? Or, alternatively, does it «crowd out» the human capital leading to the deterioration of economic growth? The paper gives an overview of the relevant literature and discusses both theoretical and empirical results obtained regarding the connection between human capital accumulation and resource abundance. It shows that despite some theoretical predictions about the harmful effect of resource abundance on human capital accumulation, unambiguous evidence of such impact that would be robust with respect to the change of resource abundance parameter has not been obtained yet.

The paper is devoted to the problems of promoting regional economic growth in Russia. Despite the efforts directed at the reforms of budgeting and political systems the interregional disbalances still persist. Unevenness of socio-economic development in the Russion regions leads to further centralization and may threat the existence of the federation. The paper draws an analogy between the Soviet elaboration of «khozraschyot» mechanisms and the Russian enhancement of federalism. In the latter case the attempts at reforming are performed using the paradigm that is marked by methodological contradictions and therefore is of no use for the improvement of Russian federalism.

The article assesses the effectiveness and outcomes of cooperation of the Commonwealth participating states over the past 20 years. It reviews perspectives and directions for further development of the CIS taking into account the conditions and characteristics of integration processes of the post-Soviet states, implementation of the principles of multilevel and multispeed integration of the Commonwealth participating states.

The article considers current economic problems of the Russian Arctic which is the zone of national strategic interests of the Russian State. This is especially acute due to further large-scale development of the Arctic shelf. Contradictory trends of international cooperation are analyzed, because it is an important condition for development of extremely expensive and technically complicated projects in the Arctic.

The article deals with the incentives for increasing international trade centralization and restricting trade border regions openness in reformed economy. Two groups of incentives are determined in terms of new political economy approaches: fear of separatism and reluctance of income redistribution. The situation with the radical international trade reform in Russia, followed by correction of trade openness, illustrates key moments in the concepts.