The paper deals with Russian social and economic development in the context of global trends. New economic crisis is looming ahead, but developed economies do not have sufficient fiscal and monetary instruments to mitigate it. The lack of institutional reforms, which were put on agenda by the crisis of 2008—2009, is another source of experts’ concerns. Russian authorities have announced a set of national goals and projects as the central point of social and economic policy for 2018—2024. The new economic growth policy includes the shift from the demand-side growth model to the supply-side one, broad implementation of project methods in economic policy, and continuation of conservative fiscal and monetary policy.

JEL: E61, E66, F51, H53, H54, O52.
Keywords: economic policy, economic growth, national projects, global crisis, sanctions, Russia.

The article attempts to summarize the results of a global scientific discussion in the field of financial development. Four areas of research on financial development have been identified and analyzed, which seem to be the most noticeable and significant both for the global economic discussion and for Russian experts: the impact of financial development on economic growth; the problem of assessing financial development; financial inclusion; sustainable finance concept. It is noted that the last two areas are closely related to the concepts of socio-economic development, respectively, of inclusive growth ("growth for all") and of sustainable development. The necessity of taking into account the latest achievements of the world scientific thought in the Russian state policy concerning the financial sector is substantiated.

JEL: B26, G18, G20, G28, O16.
Keywords: financial development, economic growth, financial inclusion, inequality, financial strategies, sustainable finance, trade-off, stability.

The article analyzes the problems of applying stock pricing models in the Russian stock market. The novelty of the study lies in the peculiarities of the methodology used and the substantive conclusions on the specifics of the influence of fundamental factors on the pricing of shares of Russian companies. The study was conducted using its own 5-factor basic pricing model based on a sample of the most complete number of issues of shares of Russian issuers and a long time horizon, from 1997 to 2017. The market portfolio was the widest for a set of issuers. We consider the factor model as a kind of universal indicator of the efficiency of the stock market performance of its functions. The article confirms the significance of factors of a broad market portfolio, size, liquidity and, in part, momentum (inertia). However, starting from 2011, the significance of factors began to decrease as the qualitative characteristics of the stock market deteriorated due to the outflow of foreign portfolio investment, combined with the low level of development of domestic institutional investors. Also identified is the cyclical nature of the actions of company size and liquidity factors. Their ability to generate additional income on shares rises mainly at the stage of the fall of the stock market. The results of the study suggest that as domestic institutional investors develop on the Russian stock market, factor investment strategies can be used as a tool to increase the return on investor portfolios.

JEL: D53, E44, G11, G12, G17.
Keywords: CAPM, growth stocks, value stocks, inertia effect, stock liquidity, foreign portfolio investors, factor investing, financial market, economic growth, institutional investors.

This paper analyzes the trends in the corporate bond market of the Russian Federation and considers its weaknesses. The authors first empirically investigate determinants of the development of corporate bond markets with account of different sensitivity to the influence of institutional factors for different groups of countries. Research methods include multifactor regressions and generalized method of moments. The sample includes 28 developed and developing countries. The authors obtain new results on the influence of institutional factors on corporate bond markets: in particular, a positive influence of quality of institutional environment on the fast-growing Next11 countries is revealed, as well as the significance of human capital for a number of developing countries.

JEL: C12, E44, G12.
Keywords: corporate bonds, institutional environment, developed countries, developing countries, human capital index.

We develop an econometric method for estimating risks of financial distress among Russian industrial companies. It deals with international experience in the field of financial stability analysis as well as with the features of Russian data, including the following two. Firstly, bankruptcy is a rare event in the sample of Russian industrial companies. Secondly, not all of the companies become bankrupt by economic reasons. At the same time, not all of the companies that face financial problems become bankrupt. We have tried the developed method using a wide sample of Russian companies (appr. 97 000 firms a year, more than a million firms all in all). As a result, the method shows a significant shift in the ability of the model to predict financial distress risks in comparison to other suitable methods. Results and conclusions made in the paper can help clarify anti-crisis macroeconomic policy as well as reveal Russian industries to focus on.

JEL: C25, C46, C51, E32, G32, G33.
Keywords: financial stability, bankruptcy, Russian industrial companies, unobservable distress, logit-analysis.

With the acceleration of technological development and the digital transformation of economies, the impact of intellectual property on economic growth will increase. The article shows that the forms and means of legal protection and use of intellectual property will evolve in line with the opportunities that will be provided by the infrastructure (production, fixation, management, tracking and protection of intellectual property rights) in this area. In Russia, the "digitalization" of legal protection and use of intellectual property rights will make it possible to form public-private platforms for rights management, which will create additional opportunities for authors to effectively manage their rights. This will attract investors to the non-raw-material sector of the economy and may become an important driver for the development of the digital economy in the country as a whole.

JEL: G20, G21, G23, G24, G28, H81, O14, O15, O16, О30, O31, O32, O33, O34, O38.
Keywords: intellectual property, technological development, digital economy, economic development.

Based on the analysis of verdict texts, we demonstrate that many criminal cases against individuals who were prosecuted for economic crimes in Russian courts in the past few years do not correspond with the level of optimal law enforcement. Economic crimes (a) did not cause substantial harm, (b) did not have harmful externalities, (c) were common, but the enforcement was selective. Economic activity was most often overcriminalized by the law enforcement when illegal behavior consisted of accounting or tax mistakes, breach of a contract, violations of special-purpose loan regulations, or licensing offences.

JEL: D23, K14, K23, K42, P37.
Keyworlds: economic crime, overcriminalization, law enforcement, costs of legality.