Comparative Assessment of the Factors and Conditions of the Formation of the Neoindustrial Social State in Russia and Germany

Russia and Germany are traditionally reputed as countries with socially oriented economies. Namely, these countries are also close by the index of the share of real sector of economy at GDP. And however, Germany is a founder of social market household largely defined its leadership in world economy, in current conditions of crisis of “the state of general welfare” the search of a new model of development for Germany is also important as for Russia stood on the way of modernization and neo-industrialization. In the article, the hypothesis about forming of the new model of development uniting the social orientation of economy, processes of neoindustrialization, and globalization is made. At the same time, the social orientation is the main aim of socio-economic development, neo-industrialization is a way to achieve it, and globalization is a criterion presupposing more effective use of resources. Theoretical backgrounds of development of “social state” are generalized in the works of German and Russian classics put the backgrounds of economic humanism, it has allowed to prove the fatality of modernization process without considering of deep mental backgrounds and civilization codes of the nation development. The methodological approaches to development of a new model of neo-industrial social state with emphasizing different levels: global, national, local, individual are worked out; and the technique for estimation of factors and conditions of its development is proposed. The technique is tested on the example of Russia and Germany. The comparative analysis conducted has allowed to make the conclusion about similarity of target guidelines, initial conditions, problems and ways of their solving in these countries, that is to be considered both in a strategy and a policy of socio-economic development of these countries and by their international partnership

Stimulating innovation in Russia: the role of institutions and policies

This paper examines the potential role of innovation policy in enhancing long-term productivity growth in Russia. It begins by exploring the role of framework conditions for business in encouraging innovative activities, particularly with respect to intellectual property rights and competition. Realising Russia’s innovation potential will also require reform of the large public science sector. This raises issues pertaining to the organisation and financing of public research bodies and, in particular, to the incentives and opportunities they face in commercialising the results of their research. Finally, the paper looks at the potential role of direct interventions, such as special economic zones and technoparks, as well as the scope for improving the tax regime for private-sector R&D

Disintegration and Coordination of Forecast Parameters of Socio-Economic Development and the Fuel and Energy Balance of the Region

The scope of strategic planning documents for the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, the procedure for their development and coordination on interregional and federal levels, the requirements for their content and conjunction with other long- and medium-term territorial programs are now approved by statute. The article presents the theoretical and methodological problems of detailing and interrelation of the region’s socio-economic development scenarios with the forecast parameters of regional energy consumption based on the fuel and energy balance under conditions of incomplete retrospective information. This situation is typical of the market environment, and some restrictions on access to statistical data are irremovable. This fact reduces the opportunity to apply formal and rigorous evaluation methods and the objectivity level of not only the forecast indicators, but also of the current ones. The coordination of these documents is methodologically and practically relevant due to the relative isolation of their formation process, a different level of detailing of the forecast scenarios, and a lack of the required information. The author uses the energy saving and energy efficiency measurement technique that is based on the structural comparison of performance, current and estimated fuel and energy balances, consistent with the region’s socio-economic development forecast. The author is also concerned with the development of this technique for the purpose of a comparative regional energy consumption analysis in retrospective and predictive periods. Since 2007, the author has been involved in practical calculations within the framework of the state order of the Ministry of Energy, Housing and Utilities of the Sverdlovsk Region. The article describes methodological characteristics of the author’s approaches to the development of variants of the fuel and energy balance, taking into account maintaining the official scenarios of socio-economic development of the region, the errors and the incompleteness of statistical data, and the regulatory requirements pertaining to the quality of forecasts

Fiscal capacity of the city: the assessment of the influence on the sustainability of urban environment and the quality of living (the case of «second» cities of the Russian Federation)

The modern financial situation demonstrates tough asymmetry in financial development between the territorial units, which are the capital cities, and the «second» cities of constituent units of the Russian Federation. This is based upon chronic deficit of inner financial sources for covering the budget expenditure items of the latter ones. The instruments of municipal units’ fiscal capacity level equalization, which are being implemented by the national government, lead to adverse effects. These effects of national fiscal practice include the resource dependence on the upper level and lack of interest of the «vice-capitals’» local authorities to broaden the inner income base, disbalance between economic, social, natural-resource components of urban environment’s sustainable development and the fall of the residents’ quality of living. In this connection, the effectiveness research of the current managerial mechanism of fiscal capacity of the «second» cities of constituent units of the Russian Federation in the context of the sustainable development concept is extremely important. The results of the survey on the packaged approach to economical and statistical assessment of the fiscal capacity level as a defining factor of sustainable development of the urban environment and the residents’ quality of living in «vice-capitals» of constituent units of the Russian Federation (the case of Magnitogorsk and Nizhniy Tagil) are presented in this article. Having used the packaged approach, the authors have brought to light the interconnection between the level of the «second» cities’ fiscal capacity and indicator values of ecological and socio-economic well-being of the analysed area. Additionally, they have revealed the character and direction of this connection as well as assessed the competence of management of the financial opportunities generation and usage by means of determining the indicator values of the areas’ fiscal capacity as of the current date and comparing them with optimum values

Techniques for assessing the investment attractiveness of a commercial organization based on classical methods of strategic economic analysis

Purpose: The development of methodological support for assessing the investment attractiveness of a commercial organization, considering modern information requests of stakeholders. Design/Methodology/Approach: As part of the research, the authors have developed an algorithm for investment attractiveness assessment of a commercial organization by using the scenario method of economic analysis. Findings: It is proved that the main disadvantages of the existing methods of assessing investment attractiveness are: the lack of strategic orientation of the assessment; ignoring the influence of most external and internal factors of activity; the inability to assess the risk of investing in the analyzed object; the need to compare with the level of investment attractiveness of similar organizations for an objective interpretation of the results. Practical implications: To eliminate the significant shortcomings of modern methodological support in this area, the authors recommend the use of scenario method of strategic economic analysis in the process of assessing the investment attractiveness of the organization. Originality/Value: The scenario method of strategic economic analysis proposed by the authors complements the existing approaches with the ability to take into account potential risks when making a far-sighted decision to invest in an organization by combining the results of retrospective analysis and forecasting changes in the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of financial and economic activity.peer-reviewe

The Russian consumer sector: estimation technology

The article describes the methodology for estimating the Russia’s consumer sector and the effect of its application. The monitoring procedure of the Russian consumer sector groups indicators into two units: the unit of the estimation of consumer goods and the services market estimation unit. The estimation unit of consumer goods is composed of two modules: food products and non-food products. This module offers two components that provide an estimation of the consumer sector: marketing (estimates the accessibility of retail trade and services for end users) and production (estimates the domestic manufacture). The results of the estimation show general improvements in the consumer sector in the period of 2000–2014, but overall development is evaluated as low. The analysis revealed that the financing is growing faster than the quality indices of development. As an example, the financing of agriculture has increased by 1.5 times over 15 years (against comparable prices from 2000), while agricultural production has not changed. Another most pressing challenge is the weak differentiation of the Russian economy, as evidenced by the low rates of non-food production (availability of non-foods of own production remains at a low level and averages 20 %). The results of the estimation suggest the need to reform the regulation of the sector primarily concerning priorities for its development and improvement of financial and economic mechanisms to achieve them.The research has been supported by the Russian Science Foundation Gran, the project № 15–18–10014 " Projection of optimal socio-economic systems in the turbulence of external and internal environment"

Post-Turing Methodology: Breaking the Wall on the Way to Artificial General Intelligence

This article offers comprehensive criticism of the Turing test and develops quality criteria for new artificial general intelligence (AGI) assessment tests. It is shown that the prerequisites A. Turing drew upon when reducing personality and human consciousness to “suitable branches of thought” re-flected the engineering level of his time. In fact, the Turing “imitation game” employed only symbolic communication and ignored the physical world. This paper suggests that by restricting thinking ability to symbolic systems alone Turing unknowingly constructed “the wall” that excludes any possi-bility of transition from a complex observable phenomenon to an abstract image or concept. It is, therefore, sensible to factor in new requirements for AI (artificial intelligence) maturity assessment when approaching the Tu-ring test. Such AI must support all forms of communication with a human being, and it should be able to comprehend abstract images and specify con-cepts as well as participate in social practices