• I. Kovzanadze - Peculiarities of Development of Former Socialist Countries Banking Systems
• M. Kozlov - Economic Position of Rural Commodities Producers (Basing on the Results of the Sociological Survey)

     Authors address K. Marx's scientific heritage, considering marxism as a multidimensional social science, including economic theory, philosophy of history (theory of social development), theory of class struggle and revolution, theory of economic history, history of economic thought. In their opinion, the most interesting and actual components of Marx's theory are the philosophy of history as a method of historical analysis and the theory of economic history. Therefore the marxist method of historical analysis and the treatment of economic history is the subject of the article. The principles formulated by Marx, the experience of creative rethinking of marxism, its application to social evolution are investigated. Authors make attempt to show which elements of the social theory of marxism were erroneous, which elements have lost their value and which elements are valuable today.

     Russia has managed to achieve spectacular success after the 1998 crisis. High rates of economic growth have been first of all conditioned by low level of industrial capacity utilization in the pre-crisis period. Other factors have also played an important role: the positive conjuncture of world oil prices; dynamics of relative prices; changes in economic subjects' behavior. In order to make economic growth sustainable it is necessary to implement deep structural changes in the country.

     The author considers opportunities of maintaining sustainable growth of the Russian economy and preventing catastrophic pollution of environment by extensive development of the resource sector. In his opinion, the solution lies in switching production and consumption to new technologies, several times more effective than the old ones. In the analysis of the Russian economy the author uses the models of the modern theory of economic growth and gives further development to Solow's model. Applying of production function with increasing and decreasing returns from scale leads to the conclusion that stable economic growth in Russia can be achieved only in case when «old» and «new» technological (reproductive) structures coexist in the economy for a rather long period. The most dangerous consequence of excessive development of the resource sector is delay in rates of accumulation of capital in processing industries and outflow of labor to the resource sector.

     Negative trends in Russian macroeconomic dynamics are considered in the article: raw materials production orientation, lowering of employees remuneration share in GDP, inflation, etc. It is shown that they are caused by the institutional system that has been formed during the period of reforms. This system hinders effective social and economic development.

     The article is devoted to social and cultural problems, essential in the light of formulating the tasks of the future administrative and territorial reform and constructing corresponding regional policy. The author describes the concept of territorial-economic structure, defining it according to social and economic attributes as the group of spatial social and economic systems integrated with surrounding space. Classification of territorial-economic structures as forms of rural and urban types of civilization is offered. Intercivilizational sociocultural «breaks» between different types of territorial-economic structures in Russia are shown. Opportunities of implementation of the given approach in forming national regional policy are considered.

     The increase of the role of human factor in post-industrial society and influence of that shift on the theory of economic growth are examined in the article. Special attention is paid to transformation of labor and capital. The influence of the size of the state, technical progress, educational system and wage level on rates of economic development is considered. The author examines the basic opportunities of increasing the value of human capital as the base of sustainable economic development of Russia.

     In this study the institutional approach is used to analyze the issues of stock market efficiency. Until now corporate finance theory, primarily based on the neoclassical methodology, has viewed the issue of the stock market efficiency only as a problem of information function of stock market prices. In this study we present another view that the efficiency of stock market is the efficiency of market institutions functioning and especially of its regulative institutions. Such an approach seems to be up-to-date in the context of analysis of the emerging markets experience including the Russian case where the market and regulative institutions are still in the process of forming.

     The article presents a critical analysis of industrial surveys. The results of some top managers' surveys conducted in the key Russian industries are compared with the official statistics of Goscomstat RF. Both trustworthiness and usefulness of such surveys for economic analysis are subjected to reasonable doubt. A number of hypotheses is put forward to expain the situation.

     The chapter of &laqua;Institutional Economics&raqua; textbook is devoted to the development of business-groups as a specific feature of industrial organization in the Russian economy. The main determinants of forming and functioning of business-groups such as allocation of property rights in Soviet enterprises, networks of directors and executive authorities in the Soviet economic system as well as import of new institutes and inefficient state enforcement are in the center of analysis. Origins, structure, organization and management within the groups and the role of shareholding and informal control rights are considered.