• L. Freinkman, A. Yakovlev — Agency for Strategic Initiatives as a New Type of Development Institution
• K. Titaev, A. Dzmitryieva, I. Chetverikova — State and Business in the Arbitrazh (Commercial) Litigation
• O. Bychkova — The Public and Decision-making Process: Who and Why Needs Citizen Participation?
• V. Kleiner — Corruption in Russia, Russia Corrupted: Is There a Way out?
• M. Podshivalova — Analysis of the Quality of Basic Social and Economic Institutions That Form Environment of Small Business Development

• O. Dmitrieva, V. Chernov — Monotony and Stationarity of Pension Functions and Their Violation in Pension’s Calculations Procedures Envisaged in the Legislation of Russian Federation

• Yu. Kvashnin — Prospects for Russian Investments in Ukraine
• K. Grasmik, A. Kolesova — On the Role of Business Relations Culture in Forming Innovative Networks (The Case of Stanford University)

• Allen R. Farm to Factory: A Reinterpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution

Abstracts

Over the quarter of the century that has passed since the beginning of the market reforms, Russia managed to gain a more solid stance in the global economy. However, during that time Russia could not completely abandon archaic social forms like those of power-and-submission or "limited access order", as in D. North’s concept. The article analyzes how these social patterns, replicating themselves, limit the opportunities for the transition to a new stage of economic development — the one that does not predominantly rely on the access to the oil-and-gas or administrative rent, but is based on productivity and efficiency growth.

JEL: E20, E22, E24.
Keywords: market reforms, productivity, investment, human capital.

Developments in the post-crisis period in Russia were associated with the emergence of a number of new institutions that support interactions between government and business. Against this background, the Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI), in our opinion, has been the most successful institutional innovation so far. In this article we analyze the ASI as a new type of development institution for Russia, whose activity is focused not on allocations of budget funds and preferences, but on organization of strategic dialogue with the private sector and the consensus building within the government. Practical experience of the ASI’s activity is reviewed in this article, first, from the standpoint of general principles of the "new industrial policy" and, second, from the perspective of international best practices in deregulation policies. On this basis, the article highlights the strengths and possible risks of the current ASI model and proposes further steps to facilitate formation of favorable investment climate.

JEL: K20, K23, K40, K41.
Keywords: economic development, developing countries, development institutions, investment climate, deregulation, medium-size business, industrial policy.

This article seeks to answer the question whether Russian Arbitrazh (Commercial) courts tend to decide cases in favor of defendant versus plaintiff or state versus business. We have found that courts favor business entities in civil cases, while in administrative cases courts take decisions in favor of governmental bodies other things being equal. In addition, the plaintiff bias persists regardless of the type of the process. However, the plaintiff bias decreases with the rise of the case complexity. The article is based on the regression analysis of a random sample of 10 000 cases decided by the Russian Arbitrazh (commercial) courts in 2007—2011.

JEL: L50, P20, O25.
Keywords: economic institutions in Russia, arbitrazh (commercial) courts, business—government litigation, empirical legal studies.

The participation of the public in the decision-making and policy discussion is expected to allow the officials to re-valuate the proposed decisions, save money on their implementation and restore public trust in government. However, from the point of view of bureaucrats, direct participation is often unproductive: you are required to spend work time and energy on discussions with non-experts and have no means to predict the effectiveness and efficiency of these debates. The article considers theories and empirical studies that can explain a new fashion trend of openness and transparency in world’s public policy and problems with its implementation. The article also evaluates the applicability of republican tradition to modern policy-making and analyzes alternative mode of public involvement.

JEL: H10, H11, Z18, N42.
Keywords: public policy, rule-making, open government, transparency, public participation.

The article views corruption as an integral feature and the engine of the Russian economy. The main causes of corruption are linked to the nature of Russian privatization, mechanisms of government appointments and carrier growth, the lack of resource control in the process of the execution of economic policies. Corruption is considered to be a multilevel phenomenon, which embraces the process of governmental decision making, functioning of businesses and householders’ performance. Systematic analysis of the dissemination of corruption and successful experiences of other countries allow full scale measures for combating corruption in Russia to be proposed. Special attention is paid to the formation of state, corporate and public anti-corruption institutions.

JEL: D73, D02, D23, P2, P47, P51.
Keywords: corruption, Russian economy, systematic approach, privatization, state corruption, corporate corruption, anti-corruption institutions.

The results of the statistical analysis of institutional quality impact on the rate of small business’ development in the regions of the Russian Federation are presented in the article. The methods of correlation analysis, multi-dimensional medium, card positioning have been used in the study. The sample included all the subjects of RF, except for Moscow and St. Petersburg. The author concludes that the regions are poorly differentiated according to the quality of institutions and in a medium degree — with respect to density distribution of SB. It is shown that SB does not affect the development of middle class in Russia. Every third region has institutional quality and density distribution of SB below the average.

JEL: С01, L26.
Keywords: institutional environment, small business, institutional quality, regional differentiation.

The article presents the mathematical formalization of the pension’s calculations procedures in the changing pension legislation of Russian Federation, which has been done for the first time. Mathematical formalization provided for examining pension’s calculation procedures as a function of earnings and working record, stationarity of pension functions being examined as well. Violations of monotony and stationarity of pension functions and violation of the monotony of transition from one pension function to another during pension reforms result in changing ratio of pension’s capacities of different groups of retired people. This fact is recognized by the people as unfair, which in turn destimulates economic activities. Several versions of monotone pension functions are developed as well as methods of incorporating previous pension calculation procedures into a new monotone pension function.

JEL: E24, H55, H75, J26.
Keywords: pensions, pension legislation, pension reforms, pension functions, monotony pension function of earnings and working record, stationarity of pension function, pension calculation procedures.

The current half-year old systemic crisis in Ukraine has had a deep negative effect on almost all aspects of Russian-Ukrainian relations. Investment ties, which developed greatly during the previous decade, were no exception. In this article we try to assess the scale and identify the key trends of corporate integration between the two states before the crisis, find out the impact of the crisis on FDI dynamics, estimate the probability of nationalization of enterprises with Russian capital, and consider possible strategies of Russian companies, taking into account existing and hypothetical economic and political risks in Ukraine.

JEL: F51, F59, F21.
Keywords: economy of Ukraine, Russian-Ukrainian relations, foreign direct investment, corporate integration.

It is commonly assumed that a dominant role in the formation of Silicon Valley was played by such factors as the availability of highly skilled workforce, policy in the sphere of public procurement of high-tech products, participation of large companies and financial institutions. The article reveals the content of programs at Stanford University to establish links between the university staff and companies, shows their influence on the formation of innovation networks in Silicon Valley.

JEL: O31, O33.
Keywords: innovation, innovation network, Silicon Valley, business culture.