• G. Fagiolo, A. Roventini — On the Scientific Status of Economic Policy: A Tale of Alternative Paradigms
• I. Rozmainsky — Uncertainty and Institutional Evolution in Complex Economic Systems: The Post Keynesian Approach

• J. M. Keynes — Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren (Afterword by D. Shestakov) (full text 207 Kb)

• A. Yakovlev, Yu. Simachev, Yu. Danilov — The Russian Corporation: Models of Behavior during the Crisis
• T. Dolgopyatova — Corporate Governance in Russian Companies: Globalization and Crisis Effects
• S. Avdasheva, Yu. Simachev — State Corporations: Can We Assess Corporate Governance?
• A. Shastitko, S. Avdasheva — Independent Director in State Participating Companies: Cassandra or Ariadna?

• V. Karlusov — China and the Global Crisis
• N. Ryzhova — The Influence of Border Trade on Economic Development of Russia and China

• A. Suetin — Who Will Reckon in the End? (On the Book by Ch. Dumas "China and America: A Time of Reckoning")

Abstracts

The Innovation Pause Hypothesis is developed in the article. According to this hypothesis, the current crisis can be explained by the exhaustion of possibilities of existing general purpose technologies and by the delay of new ones in combination with overoptimistic expectations due to a long period of rapid economic expansion. If this hypothesis is correct, then it is quite plausible that a significant period of time will be required before fast growth is restored in Western economies. Russia gets an additional chance to decrease the gap between Russian and Western economic productivity provided that an efficient mechanism of technology borrowing is created. An appropriate strategy must include a set of measures aimed at: increasing the country’s adaptive capacity; designing an interactive planning system in order to develop large-scale modernization projects; increasing the capital accumulation rate by stimulating savings and improving the credit system.

The article considers and compares two modern approaches to the scientific foundation of economic policy. The first one is a part of mainstream economics and involves developing dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models for analyzing business cycles and exogenous monetary shocks. The second one (which the authors prefer) is a creation of "agent-based models" with more realistic assumptions on the behavior and interactions of agents, absence of equilibrium and analytical solutions, but with computer simulations. The article criticizes an equilibrium approach, describes some results of application of agent-based computational economics to the analysis of economic policy and mentions some difficulties arising whenever this new theoretical paradigm is applied.

The paper is an attempt to develop the post Keynesian approach to comparative analysis of economic systems. The basic differences between economic systems are determined by the differences between institutions created for the sake of decreasing uncertainty. Uncertainty-reducing evolution of institutions can both stabilize and destroy economic system. The example of such destruction is the collapse of planned socialism. The author applies this approach to the analysis of economic system emerged in post-Soviet Russia which is "family-clannish capitalism". He tries to predict its institutional evolution.

The article written by the classic of economic science in the years of the Great Depression, which is published in Russian for the first time, contains an overview of economic growth through the history of mankind. Keynes points at the key factors of economic growth and argues that due to increase in the standard of life between four and eight times in the next 100 years the mankind will be able to escape from the necessity to work. He also speculates on the way moral norms will change in the future society.

The paper considers behavior patterns of Russian firms before and during the financial crisis of 2008—2009. Three main groups of actors at the firm level in the Russian economy are defined: large politically connected companies; mid-size firms that have grown in 2000s on the administrative support; successful mid-size firms which have expanded using market factors. Explanation for the too risky financial policy and decrease in efficiency before the crisis is provided in case of large companies. Forms of opportunistic behavior of managers and owners of Russian companies during the crisis are analyzed. Some policy implications (with focus on the support of successful mid-size firms that are driven by market factors) are proposed.

The paper studies the development of corporate governance in Russian companies both in economic growth and world crisis context. Interests of domestic or foreign shareholders and top-managers are working as incentives for improving corporate governance tools. These interests are determined by a number of economic and institutional conditions. In 2000s Russian businesses have entered world financial markets (including stock exchanges) and mergers and acquisitions markets. Participation of foreign shareholders in the equity and control over domestic companies has been spreading. These trends have resulted in intense use of corporate governance standards under the impact of stock market regulations and disciplined influence of foreign shareholders, managers, and non-executive (independent) directors. The crisis has brought dramatic reduction of decision-making horizon, discredit to IPO, violation of minor shareholders rights, rise in management opportunism and stockholders’ return to executive management.

The article examines state corporations as one of the options to organize the governance of state-own assets. The basic legal rules of state corporations contain imbalance between the complexity and diversity of goals and concentration of resources within state corporations, on the one hand, and weak capacity of control over their activity on the ground of formal rules, on the other hand. In these circumstances the direct control by the highest level of governmental authorities over the corporation’s activity is critical for achieving the state objectives. The important role of the principal and relatively low demand for corporate governance rules are common features of state corporations and modern Russian private companies.

The article describes the grounds and conditions of independent directors’ incorporation in the boards of directors of state participating companies. The results of independent directors’ elections in their boards are analyzed. A number of variants of independent director’s de-facto status are shown. The conditions for realizing advantages of independent directors’ involvement as compared with public servants from the perspective of developing the effective system of corporate governance are identified.

Based on the case of China, the article addresses the challenges posed by the current global crisis for national economies including Russia. In this context, the author analyzes the anti-crisis measures and factors, the evolution of China’s socio-economic strategy and modernization of the real and financial sectors of the Chinese economy. The article also focuses on retrospective comparative assessment of economic dynamics, periodization, growth rates and future growth prospects of China’s GDP. The final general conclusions are significant and relevant for China as well as for other economies in transition, catch-up and growing market economies including Russia.

National interests in developing border trade often contradict regional interests. Nevertheless if one examines border trade as a stimulus for developing border regions, the situation will be changed significantly. In this paper the author analyzes the case of Russian-Chinese border trade concerning social and economic development of the border regions of Russia and China.