Comparison of the Efficiency of Budget Financing and the Social Security of a Region

The article deals with theoretical and economic aspects of the “security” category and draws a distinction between philosophical, sociological, and economic approaches to the concept of social security. From the perspective of a system approach, the authors define the place of the region’s social security in ensuring national security. The article describes the theoretical content of the «social security» category and provides the authors’ specification for such terms as «social risks,» «danger,» and «threat.» The authors offer methodological tools to evaluate the region’s social security based on a complex assessment of the region’s socioeconomic and budget-financing indicators to identify the risks (deviations) and factors of inefficient financing. The proposed methodological approach is based on identifying the dependencies between the social and financial security of the region. The following indicators reflecting the social security level in the territory of residence were selected as estimated indicators: the region’s consolidated budget income and expenses, gross domestic product growth rates, natural population growth ratio, unemployment level, the share of the population with income below the subsistence minimum. This approach was tested by the example of the Perm Territory and Sverdlovsk Region revealing the regularities as well as favorable and unfavorable periods for the region’s social security. The obtained estimated indicators are ranked depending on the growth (fall) time lag, resilience, and sensitivity to budget financing. The assessment results show that the Perm Territory has been entering a deep recession in terms of national security since 2012. Similar tendencies are demonstrated by the Sverdlovsk Region; however, in view of the apparent diversity and dominant influence of the Perm Territory and the Sverdlovsk Region on the socioeconomic development of the Privolzhsky and Ural Federal Districts, respectively, the provided comparison is of scientific and practical interest.The research has been supported by the Grant of the Russian Science Foundation (the Project № 14–18–00574 "Anticrisis Information Analysis System: Diagnostics of Regions, Threat Assessment, and Scenario Forecasting to Maintain and Strengthen the Economic Security and Welfare of Russia")

The role of environmental insurance in maintaining environmental safety of the region

In the article, the development problems of environmental insurance as a risk management method for maintaining environmental safety in the region are considered. The detailed analysis of the laws of the Russian Federation in conservation activity is presented; contradictions and shortcomings are revealed. Ways of overcoming of the existing formal character of maintaining environmental safety in the Russian regions are offered. In particular, extension of insurance covering in the current law «On compulsory insurance of the civil liability of an owner of dangerous installation on the infliction of harm as a result of accident on dangerous installation» at the expense of inclusion in number of insurance risks of risk of environmental harm. The special attention in the article is paid to insurance of public liability of owners of chemical objects as the most dangerous to the environment. The methodology of actuarial expectation is added with a risk assessment of expert services with the use of a scoring method allowing evaluating real danger to the population and the environment by the chemicals, which are especially acting in small doses. Furthermore, the added calculation methodology of insurance tariffs allows using preventive function of insurance, not so popular in Russian practices. That gives a new source of financing of nature-conservative measures in the region