The article analyzes data on dividend payments for shares listed on the Moscow Stock Exchange from 2005 to 2024 and examines major changes in corporate dividend policy and their effects on capitalization and shareholder return on investment. The authors used quantitative analysis, total yield decompositions, and various construction strategies for managing factor portfolios. Since 2012, many companies have increased dividends to compensate for slowing share price appreciation caused by adverse external shocks and a decline in demand. This reaction increased total shareholder returns but also required additional financial support to underwrite the fiscal deficits of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Nevertheless, the capitalization-to-GDP ratio and the prices of high-dividend companies dropped, and the risks of deep and long dividend gaps increased and was amplified by private investors’ irrational behavior. From 2005 to 2024, more than half of dividends were paid by only the six largest companies; dividend payouts from SOEs totaled more than those from private companies; and about 60% of dividends were distributed to beneficiaries who did not participate in the formation of a liquid secondary equity market. The increase in payments by companies of the third tier was a positive trend in dividend policy from 2022 to 2024. The authors found evidence confirming the Modigliani-Miller hypothesis that the distribution of net profits has little impact on share prices. Growth of capitalization and total shareholder return should be based on a company’s net profit growth and a rational allocation of it between dividends, investment, and other purposes. The investment climate, macroeconomic stability, and complete disclosure are all essential factors driving greater demand for stocks.

This article identifies major trends in the development of competition and antitrust policy over the past ten years and relates them to standard antitrust objectives. The study concentrates on competition policy with emphasis on how antitrust measures operate as one component in it. The hypothesis that there is regulatory bias in contemporary antitrust policy is explored and assessed in terms of a broader debate about the prevalence of a fundamentalist approach in economic policy. Several case studies are adduced to illustrate the following trends: increased focus by antimonopoly authorities on digital markets, pro-competitive regulation of those markets, and antitrust investigations into digital platforms. The article continues with a discussion of the proliferation of populist measures associated with antitrust objectives. The growing use of competition policy for solving social problems and for purposes beyond those of traditional competition policy (such as governing technology transfer and addressing protectionism) is examined. Each of the trends described are shown to exhibit inconsistencies between the measures taken and the policy objective of enhancing competition with the result that regulation of digital markets intensifies (and becomes direct regulation in some instances), relies on normative rather than objective analysis, and leads to implementation of industrial policy through antitrust measures. The progression toward direct regulation bolsters the hypothesis that regulatory fundamentalism has become quite prevalent as part of competition policy in recent years.

This article elucidates the impact that various forms of government support have on the financial efficiency of small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) in Russia. The empirical literature on this topic is inadequate to date even though the SME sector is extremely important for the socioeconomic development of Russia. Seven key types of this government support are examined, including initiatives in finance, credits and loans, education, consulting, information, innovation, and property issues. The sample studied employs data on 165,000 Russian SMEs from 2019 to 2022. Performance indicators such as return on equity, return on assets, and employee count are utilized to analyze the effects of government support. The analysis relies on the difference-in-differences method applied to a panel data model which is responsive to effects on individual companies and also on a dynamic model. This study finds that financial, informational, and, to a lesser extent, consulting support have a positive effect on profitability that begins in the year following assistance; the impact of the other four types is much less obvious. The negligible impact of some kinds of support may mean that they are focused on particular aspects of a company’s activities and will have an economic effect only indirectly and over a longer term. These results deepen understanding of ways to provide stimulus to SMEs in the short term and thus enable the managers and owners of the companies themselves to understand the main types of government support that, on average, facilitate rapid growth in business efficiency. The results also suggest the following economic policy recommendations: optimizing the support structure, developing information platforms, expanding non-financial support instruments, reducing bureaucratic barriers, and implementing a comprehensive system for monitoring and evaluating support outcomes.

The global sum of financial resources devoted to the charitable activities of organizations together with personal donations by individuals exceeded USD 313 billion in 2023, which puts charity on a par with such financially intensive drivers of the global economy as personalized medicine or the electric vehicle market. The scale of this socio-economic phenomenon calls for a comprehensive scientific account, especially because there has been so little previous research on the activities of charitable organizations. The great financial and economic importance of charity as a feature of social relations is justification enough for systematically analyzing the various impacts of charitable activities and developing a rational basis for managing charitable organizations. The purpose of this study is to synthesize theoretical approaches to defining the dominant factors in the management of charitable organizations and to identify the most acute theoretical and methodological problems that may affect their development. The study’s empirical evidence was derived from a sociological survey, proceeded mainly along inductive lines, and then employed Euler diagrams to arrive at the authors’ systematization of categories associated with the concept of charity. The management principles specific to the special class of structures exemplified by charitable organizations were synthesized. A methodology was developed to classify them in such a way that charitable organizations can be distinguished from the wider group of non-profit organizations while also taking into account the charitable activities of commercial firms. Studies of charity in the twenty-first century have been so highly specialized that the scientific landscape has become fragmented and lacks a comprehensive theoretical basis for this dynamically evolving set of practices. This study has turned up new data, which may be applied not only to individual organizations, but also to the development of state regulation in the charity sector.

The poles in a multipolar world are formed and function stably when a state devotes due attention to the development and implementation of structural policy. This involves using suitable tools for solving a wide range of problems: from setting up monitoring and technological modernization of the economy to changes in institutional systems. When structural reforms are applied to any country’s economy, the primary concern should be how to establish dynamic characteristics that will ensure the intended responsiveness to controls while also dampening the reaction to negative shocks. Therefore, the search for new methods and tools for developing and implementing structural policy and also for assessing its effectiveness becomes a crucial undertaking. Organizing such efforts is one of the primary tasks of government. However, one should keep in mind that there is a high probability of miscalculations and errors when arriving at seemingly justified decisions. This susceptibility to error obliges those in charge of economic management to ensure that there are formalized and continuously employed means for identifying errors and deciding on necessary changes in economic behavior. Experience in analyzing all kinds of dynamic systems, including especially economic ones, shows clearly that such studies will be most comprehensive and meaningful when their objects can be formalized in a model using differential equations. This article addresses precisely that kind of dynamic input-output balance (IOB). The study also presupposes that official statistical data should fully confirm the model’s solutions to problems. The purpose of this research is to improve the toolkit for analyzing structural policy, and its output is a computable model of dynamic IOB, which enables quantitative analysis of the structural dynamics for reaching a stated goal and which solves a set of related problems typical of input-output analysis. The model used for the study employed information from the Rosstat base tables for 2011 and 2016.

Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake’s recent book Restarting the Future: How to Fix the Intangible Economy has been translated into Russian by Alexey Rezvov and was published by the Gaidar Institute Press in 2025. This book follows up themes from their previous Capitalism without Capital: The Rise of the Intangible Economy, which appeared in Russian translation in 2024. The new work offers a timely and original analysis of contemporary economic problems. What hinders sustainable economic development? Why are private investments stagnating? What needs to change in the financing system for cutting-edge sectors in light of the specifics of the modern technological base? How compatible are innovations with the protection of intellectual property rights? How should we respond to the challenges of catch-up development within the context of the “intangible economy”? All these questions are raised in the book and are discussed in the article presented here. Many of the book’s assessments and conclusions are debatable, and at times Haskel and Westlake merely outline problems and contradictions, leaving ample room for further reflection and independent conclusions.

Diane Coyle’s recent book Cogs and Monsters has been translated from English by Alla Belykh and published in 2025 by the Gaidar Institute Publishing House. The book highlights crucial problems in economic theory and argues that a number of its branches need reform in order to respond to changes in the real economy. Numerous examples show that economic models are unable to describe economic reality and are unsuitable for making predictions. Coyle shows the clear challenges to economics presented by both the digitalization of the economy and the introduction of artificial intelligence, and she proposes revisions in several standard economic models. The book points out that traditional economic science still views people as “cogs” who are rational, calculating, independent agents acting within clearly defined conditions. But the digital economy is swayed much more by other agents, the “monsters,” forces that are uncontrollable, ever accelerating, and influenced socially by unknowns. When people are regarded as cogs, the economy itself creates monsters and thus lacks tools for understanding new problems and contemporary challenges to existing practices. Cogs and Monsters will interest anyone who deals with issues in economic theory and the methodology of economic science.