• A. Pelyasov, O. Kolesnikova — Evaluation of Creativity of the Russian Regional Communities
• E. Bukhval’d — Russian Federalism at the Critical Stage of Development
• L. Nikitin — Cities with Over One Million Inhabitants on the Banking Map of Russia: Scales of Their Business Operations, Areas of Influence, and Network Ties

• L. Litoshenko — Marx’s Method
• I. Levina — The Transformation Problem: A Comparative Historical Analysis of Approaches and Solutions (Classical Perspectives)

• G. Gloveli — One of Possible Histories of Economic Thought in Russia (On the Book by J. Zweynert "Eine Geschichte des цkonomischen Denkens in Ru?land")

• Mil'ner B. Z. The Theory of Organization: A Textbook. The 7th Ed., Revised and Enlarged

Abstracts

Can the Russian ruble become an international reserve currency? By identifying the key determinants of the international status of national currency this paper estimates possibilities of the ruble. The significant determinants include: the size of the home country, inflation rate, exchange rate volatility, the size of the relevant home financial market, and network externality. The author believes that several factors are in favor of the Russian currency, in particular the turnover and liquidity of foreign exchange market, the size of foreign trade, the development of international market of debt securities in Russian ruble. The paper discusses some important policy implications of internationalization of the ruble for the Bank of Russia and the Russian economy in general.

The author assumes that setting the target of creating an international financial center in Russia is caused by the international competition for maximizing national share in value-added chains in modern industries and for human resources capable of creating the value-added. Having analyzed the historical evolution of international financial centers the author opts for pursuing the aim of turning Moscow into the regional center for the CIS, CEE and/or Middle East countries. To achieve it, some measures are proposed, including motivating international companies and banks to transfer their regional headquarters to Moscow.

The role of the value-added tax in Russia, reduction of the tax rate in order to minimize its distortionary effects on economic development and even its possible replacement with the retail sales tax are one of the most popular discussion topics among decision-makers through the last 2-3 years. The paper is focused on the analysis of the VAT in Russia, its revenue-raising function as well as its role in tax policy and tax system of Russia. The conclusions are based on alternative options of economic policy that include elimination of the VAT in Russia

Russian regional communities are measured by aggregate creativity index. Seven indicators grouped according to R. Florida’s approach into three indices of talent, technology, and tolerance are the basis of this evaluation. As the result one can reveal two types of creative regions: highly urbanized regions, mega city-regions, and two types of outsiders of this ranking: agroindustrial republics and old industrial oblasts.

Transformations in the sphere of federal relations concern the most important directions of the reforming processes in the country. However, not all proposed and actually developing components of the federal reform seem well-argued and corresponding to long-term, strategic interests of the Russian statehood. The basic course of reform should meet the objective requirements of further decentralization of governing economic and social processes and the need to ensure strengthening the responsibility of RF subjects’ executive bodies and local self-management for steady social and economic development of their territories. The solution of these problems calls for a new model of federal policy of regional development, specification of some important components of the municipal reform as well as inserting certain amendments into the system of intergovernmental fiscal relations in order to stir up their stimulating function.

The article considers the state of banking business in the 12 largest Russian cities (after Moscow and St. Petersburg) in the beginning of 2006. The analysis is based on statistical data that depicts activity of resident as well as non-resident credit corporations in every city. Our research shows that there are two leading cities, namely Yekaterinburg and Kazan, with different strategies: "strong banks — open market" in the first case and "strong banks – partly closed market" in the second one. Other most successful banking centers (Rostov-on-Don, Novosibirsk, Chelyabinsk, Nizhny Novgorod and Samara) develop mainly in line with "the Yekaterinburg model", not that of Kazan.

The article is a previously unpublished text written by the prominent Russian economist L. N. Litoshenko (1886–1943?) and devoted to the interpretation of K. Marx’s economic theory. Litoshenko claims that the system of economic science developed by Marx is missing logical structure and cannot be proven in its entirety. This view is supported by the fact that in Marx’s "Capital" we find internal inconsistency, ambiguous and inexact pieces of argument. The article considers the main peculiarities of Marxian theory and method. The author criticizes apologetic approaches to the appraisal of Marx’s contribution to economic theory and finds insufficient both "naпve-realistic" and "socially objective" perception of Marx’s ideas. By analyzing a huge amount of sources Litoshenko argues that if we try to approach economic life objectively, we will certainly find it difficult to regard Marx’s method as means of cognition (and change) of economic (market) reality.

The article focuses on the analysis of approaches to the transformation problem. The author examines the place and role of the transformation problem in Marx’s theory and methodology, as well as provides a critical analysis of solutions to this problem that emerged during the earlier stage of the debates in the Western literature. They include the approaches within the so-called "dual-system" interpretation developed by the proponents of the neoclassical theory and Marxists (those aiming at preserving Marxian theory without his labor theory of value, as well as those trying to retain Marx’s major conclusions but to correct his mistakes and make his theory consistent).