FISCAL POLICY

• A. Kudrin — The Mechanisms of Forming of Russia’s Non-Oil-and-Gas Budget Balance
• O. Dmitrieva — The Creation of Stabilization Funds: Premises and Consequences

• L. Yakobson — Budget Reform: Federalism or Management Aimed at Results?
• V. Polterovich, V. Popov — The Evolutionary Theory of Economic Policy. Part II. The Necessity of Timely Switching
• A. Andryakov, E. Gurvich, A. Chernyavsky — Agreement of Macroeconomic Forecasts in the Methodology of the System of National Accounts

• P. Davidson — The Post Keynesian School
• A. Skorobogatov — Institutions as the Ordering Factor and as the Destabilizing Force: New Institutional and Post Keynesian Perspectives

• V. Mironov, S. Pukhov — The Russian Economy in the Context of the World Energy Markets Development
• O. Berezinskaya, V. Mironov — National Oil-and-Gas Sector: Competitiveness Dynamics and Prospects of Financing

• Market Economy in Action: The Contemporary Political-Economic Structure of Developed Countries / Ed. by V. A. Mau, А. А. Mordashov, E. V. Turuntsev. Series "Cross-Country Social and Economic Studies"

Abstracts

The article contains proposals to enhance the sustainability of long-term fiscal policy in Russia. The new methodology implies separation of those budget revenues that come from oil and gas industries and imposition of specific constraints on their use (oil-and-gas transfer). Definition of non-oil-and-gas budget balance is also presented. Long-term effects of such a new methodology introduction on federal budget parameters are described as well.

The article analyzes the international experience of the stabilization funds creation, the place of these funds in the budgetary practice of Russia and other countries, their role in the monetary policy. An emphasis is put on the examination of the influence of the stabilization fund on the level of inflation (with examples drawn from Russian economic policy).

The paper discusses two competitive approaches to the priorities of the current stage of the budget reform in Russia. The analysis of the approaches is presented from the standpoint of credibility of government commitments in regards to budget constraints and social obligations. The paper outlines the advantages of combination of a generally centralized approach to the strategic planning and a generally decentralized usage of performance indicators for effective budgeting and stimulation.

This is the second part of the work on how economic policy of a developing country should change as it approaches the level of developed economies in terms of welfare (GDP per capita) and the quality of institutions. We focus on the impact of several policies to promote the catch up development: the speed of foreign exchange reserves accumulation ("exchange rate protectionism"); import tariffs; measures to attract foreign direct investment; import of technology versus indigenous R&D; regulation of migration and measures to support large versus small enterprises. The econometric analysis of the data on over 200 countries in 1975—1999 shows that the impact of these policies may be positive or negative depending on a stage of development; in each case we find threshold levels or critical combinations of GDP per capita and/or an institutional quality indicator. Thus, there is additional evidence to support the conclusions made in the first part of the article and based on the analysis of the evolution of economic policies in the Western countries and in the countries of successful catch up development ("economic miracles").

In this paper the authors propose the model of agreement (financial balance) of macroeconomic forecasts, budget plans and balance of payments forecasts and the results of experimental calculations of this model for 2006—2008. The urgency of working out special instruments of such agreement is connected with increasing quality demands for medium-term budget plans. The proposed model is increasing the capacities of macroeconomic forecasts qualitative analysis; it explicitly contains resources of consumption and accumulation for major sectors of the economy and the economy as a whole. The financial balance is harmonized with the System of National Accounts and may be used for complex evaluation of the fiscal policy. In particular, it is possible to evaluate the influence of changes in tax regulation on macroeconomic and balance of payments indexes. The model contains net lending / net borrowing indexes for the sectors of the economy and on this base one can make conclusions about lending and borrowing capacities of the given sectors in future.

The article written by the prominent thinker in Post Keynesian economic theory examines the main contribution to macroeconomics made by the group of scientists aimed at resurrecting the forgotten aspects of J. M. Keynes’ legacy. The author considers interrelations between fundamental uncertainty, non-neutrality of money and the role of forward contracts in the economy, thus suggesting an original approach to macroeconomic analysis.

The paper is dedicated to the New Institutional and Post Keynesian perspectives on institutions and their relation to economic stability. Embeddedness, institutional environment, and institutional arrangements are considered. Within these institutions conventional expectations, the economic policy and forward contracts are analyzed. Upon these perspectives the author shows a contradictory relation between institutions and the order and develops an institutional theory of business cycles.

The tendencies and prospects of the Russian economy development as an energy net-exporter country are considered in the context of perspective supply-demand dynamics in the world energy markets. Medium- and long-term prospects of oil and gas prices dynamics as one of the key factors of economic growth in Russia in the post-crisis period are analyzed. It is shown that due to predicted slowing of the world energy demand growth rates and strengthening in this connection of the competition in the traditional Russian markets the dual Russian economy character (it is not only a producer, but also a rather intensive consumer of energy) makes the problem of internal economy diversification very urgent. A conclusion is made that it is necessary to carry out preventive measures aimed at accelerated transformation of the Russian gas sector (or in addition to the oil sector) into a major factor of economic growth.

Methodological and empirical problems of medium-term forecasting of the Russian economy mono-product branches are considered in the article (as an example the oil-and-gas sector is analyzed). On the basis of the specially-developed technique it is shown that slowing of growth of the oil-and-gas sector in 2005 (despite the reached price peak) renders much stronger negative influence on the economic growth of the whole economy, than it follows from the official data inevitably underestimating the contribution of this sector to the GDP. The forecast of the Russian oil-and-gas sector development up to 2009 (made on the basis of the computing model) allows to estimate its financial deficiencies (proficiencies) from the point of view of self-financing of growing investments which increase is necessary for improving the international competitiveness of this sector (due to specific processes forecasted in the world economy).