High rates of economic growth together with the reserved fiscal policy during the post-crisis period have lifted the debt problem and allowed to solve some other fiscal problems in Russia. At the same time, the fiscal policy that has been carrying out remains pro-cyclical thereby posing a risk of fiscal problems emergence in future. The necessity of implementation of scaled structural reforms requires the development of a methodology of estimating fiscal costs of such reforms that would be consistent with fiscal constraints. The benefits of application of such a methodology with reference to the civil service, pension, and housing and utilities reforms are illustrated in the present Chapter.
    The Chapter also argues for the need to legally approve special fiscal rules related to the size of public debt and budget deficit and presents a concrete set of such rules. Their application will allow the Russian government to maintain fiscal stability at different oil prices and in different phases of economic cycle while providing adequate financing for structural reforms, which will make the budget policy more predictable and sustainable. In addition, the approval of the proposed fiscal rules will help in successful implementation of the Concept of the Budget Process Reform in two priority areas: introduction of medium-term budgeting and splitting budget expenditures into existing and new spending commitments.

     The basic tendencies of the Russian economy in 2004 are analyzed in the essay. Four parts of the paper are devoted to different aspects of Russia' economy growth: social and political background, monetary and budget spheres, real sector of the economy, institutional and macroeconomic problems. The big massive of statistics and reliable information on the reforms are used in the research. To the authors' opinion, the year 2004 was characterized by positive and negative trends in socioeconomic development. They can be explained by faster economic growth compared to slower development of government institutions. This makes the questions of state reforming the most actual - administrative reform, law and justice reform, solving the problem of corruption and conflict of interests in the civil service.

     Russian policy makers argue that agriculture suffers from decapitalization due to financial constraints faced by producers. This view is the basis for the national agricultural policy, which emphasizes reimbursement of input costs and substitutes government and quasi-government organizations for missing market institutions. The article evaluates the availability of purchased farm inputs, the efficiency of their use, the main problems in the emergence of market institutions, and the impact of government policies. The analysis focuses on five groups of purchased inputs: farm machinery, fertilizers, fuel, seeds, and animal feed. The information sources include official statistics and data from two original surveys.

     The article is devoted to the problem of employment in Russian agriculture under conditions of economic transformation. As the analysis shows, huge transfer of labor from corporate to individual enterprises have taken place. Profitability of labor has radically decreased, partial unemployment (especially in individual enterprises) has developed and the quality of labor has gone down. The key measures suggested include increase of labor profitability and development of alternative spheres of employment in rural areas.

     The article analyses farms' access to credit and other financial institutions in Russia. Some government policies that have a bearing on the main financial issues of the farm sector are examined. These include policies relating to debt restructuring, subsidised credit and investment support. Farms' access to credit is analysed at both sector level and for the sample of 144 farms from Rostov, Ivanovo and Nizhni Novgorod oblasts, applying the discreet regression analysis. The findings caution against generalizing the conventional financial patterns of market economies to transition countries.

     This study is aimed to analyze Russian corporate farms technical efficiency using DEA and allocative efficiency basing upon VMP calculations. The estimations are carried out on three aggregation levels: total farm, sectors (livestock and crops production) and selected commodities (grain, sunflower, beef, milk and pork), using survey data. The results of the analysis suggest that there is no substantial misallocation of resources given current input and output prices. High technical efficiency scores speak for production technologies being homogeneous. Neither "best practice" extension, nor getting to allocative efficiency will eliminate the large productivity gap between Russia and the developed market economies.

     The study is focused on up-to-date tendencies in the development of big and small business in Russian agriculture, their characteristics and adaptation to the market. The impact of economic and ethnographic factors as well as climate conditions and agrarian policy on the development of big and small business in agriculture is analyzed. The author offers the typology of regional agrarian structures of Russian Federation and presents the results of the comparative efficiency analysis of utilization of land and labor by corporate, private farm and subsidiary farm sectors in Russian agriculture.

     The study presents the analysis of ways of formation of land utilization of agricultural organizations, private and subsidiary farms, examines the size and procedure for land payments, intensity of annual land turnover based on the query held in 3 Russian regions. The study shows that low demand and insufficient competition for the land for agricultural purposes, lack of market information, administrative and organizational barriers are the main constraints on land turnover. The attempt is made to measure transaction costs concerned with registration of rights of land ownership.

     The article is devoted to problems of the scientific criticism in the context of polemics about Marxism. The author determines the criticism as creative production of new knowledge. He also distinguishes absolute and relative, text and context, corresponding and noncorresponding criticism. Interaction of hermeneutics and criticism is considered. Special attention is paid to the contents of criticism of the scientific system, on one side, and nonsystematic ideas, hypotheses and theories - on the other.