Efficient use of state budget resources becomes an urgent matter when both government expenditures and budget constraints are growing. Budget efficiency at the regional level is particularly important in large federative states with high economic differentiation. The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of budget policy on the dynamics of business activity in the Russian Federation’s varied regions. This has been done by calculating government expenditure multipliers at the subnational level using impulse response functions derived from VAR models. The paper provides a business activity indicator based on sectoral indices in order to assess the quarterly dynamics of economic development in the regions. This approach indicates that regions with the highest budget multipliers have significantly less debt and slightly higher expenditures on projects. High multipliers are also typical in regions where budget expenditures, federal grants, and subsidies are large relative to the GRP. Less developed regions with high potential for investment and business growth also tend to have high multipliers. In addition, the authors calculate the sensitivity of regional business activity to federal budget expenditures. In general and within a certain margin of error, the outcomes of these analyses can be used to assess each region’s contribution to the efficiency of total government expenditures at the national level and can guide the way budget policy may be employed in stimulating national economic growth. However, these estimates are perhaps best suited to support policy decisions in difficult macroeconomic conditions because they have been derived from budget multipliers within a particular VAR model applied to a period (2011–2023) when the regions were adapting to new challenges in half the years included (forced implementation of the decrees of May 2012, the need for import substitution, COVID restrictions, and economic sanctions).

The challenges in the Russian economy due to the labor market can have multidirectional effects on investment. A stimulus to investment might come from the adoption of labor-saving technologies and the resulting substitution of capital for labor. However, a constraint might be imposed by inability to hire labor to operate the newly acquired equipment. This paper presents a study of the impact of labor shortages on the investments made by enterprises in Russia as revealed in regular surveys of non-financial organizations conducted by the Central Bank of Russia. This analysis indicates that a diminishing labor supply is a factor that is increasing investment in the Russian economy. That this result is robust across different equations, evaluation methods, and initial datasets suggests that the investments are labor-saving in nature and supports the conclusion that capital is being substituted for labor. This effect is observed across all federal administrative districts and is most prevalent at industrial and trade enterprises, as well as at large and medium-sized businesses. The importance of labor shortages for investment in Russian businesses trended upward from 2019 to 2023. The need to compensate for lack of additional labor by increasing capital intensity in order to boost production volumes largely explains the low sensitivity of business investment to foreign exchange and monetary policy shocks and even to risk in general. The article’s findings suggest that inflationary pressure from the labor market will potentially subside in the medium and long term even as demographic trends continue to be negative.

The paper provides a quantitative assessment of grain damper effects on the Russian wheat market from 2021 to 2024. The author’s analysis of the theoretical foundations for modeling the market of an exporting country yielded the following: (1) a proposed approach to modeling the demand for intermediate goods in the domestic market of an exporting country; (2) a description of the way in which export prices, duties, and domestic prices are related when there is a wholesale link in the chain of the exported goods. A simulation model of the Russian wheat market with constant elasticity coefficients was constructed. The positive effect of damping from 2021 to 2024 was as follows: (1) the coefficient of price variation decreased by 2.5–5.0% from 2021 to 2023; (2) domestic demand increased by 10.4 million tons; (3) agricultural inventories decreased by 9-19%; (4) budget revenues increased by 687 billion rubles. Negative effects included: (1) a decrease in exports by 12.2 million tons; (2) a decrease in producer revenues by 200 billion rubles and of the marginal income of exporters by 369.7 billion rubles; (3) a decrease in gross yields by 8.1 million tons. A long-term reduction in the regulatory impact of export duties on the market was observed because carryover inventories diminished. The study concludes that it is advisable to remove export duties on wheat by gradually increasing the base prices on which they are calculated.

The development of technologies and increasing volume of data worldwide calls for new models of digital business. However, new business models bring new problems in protecting personal data, which cannot be resolved within the existing legal framework. Current Russian legislation does not regulate the use of personal data for the personalization of advertising and services or the use of digital user profiles in the competition for users between different platforms. The paper offers a systematic account of the problems and challenges faced by the digital economy as a result of the existing legal arrangements for personal data protection. The purpose of this study is to develop optimal solutions for two kinds of problems that the authors identify: (1) disregard of user interests; and (2) excessive constraints on competition in digital markets. Disregard of user interests may consist of invasion of privacy and infringement of consumers’ economic interests, objectionable practices by platforms in collecting data, and digital profiling of users contrary to their interests, such as price discrimination among users and discrimination on social grounds. Uncontrolled collection and use of consumers’ personal data demand reform of the way in which consent to processing personal data is solicited so that the resources businesses and users devote to formal compliance with current legislative requirements are optimized. Digital markets also suffer from the monopolization of markets by the largest platforms, the use of pricing algorithms as an anti-competitive practice, and poor regulation of access to data that restricts scientific research and erects regulatory barriers to cross-border data transfer. The authors propose solutions that require not only amending legal standards but also facilitating interaction between digital businesses and regulators.

This article examines the current status of Russian non-profit organizations (NPOs) that hold endowed capital, including endowment funds, from the viewpoint of accounting and regulation. The study employed an algorithm for identifying endowment funds and NPOs holding endowments based on public financial reporting. This method selected for NPOs according to their OKOPF and OKVED codes (standardized categories of corporate legal status and operational scope) along with certain balance sheet line items (1320, 1260, 1550), ranked them by amount of capital, and analyzed how they align with international endowment regulations in the US, UK, Germany, and France. Data from 2018 to 2022 turned up 209 endowment funds and over a thousand NPOs holding endowments, of which over 70% manage their capital via trusts. The vast majority of endowment funds initially have over three million rubles, an amount which makes state subsidies to "top up" capital to the required minimum questionable. A review of studies on endowments held by NPOs shows that transparency and donations are positively correlated; funds that disclose the most information attract approximately 40% more donations. Comparing foreign and Russian approaches confirms that conservative investment strategies, mandatory single-company management, and minimum capital requirements limit the sector’s growth and receipts of income. The authors therefore propose abolishing the fixed threshold for endowment capital, expanding investment instruments, and enhancing transparency regarding capital and income by adding supplementary lines to standardized NPO reporting. This paper also establishes a methodological foundation for subsequent quantitative assessments of endowment fund performance and regulatory improvements.

Before the Russian Revolution, Count V. N. Kokovtsov held two of the most important posts in the state administration of the Russian Empire: Minister of Finance (1904–1905, 1906–1914) and Chairman of the Council of Ministers (1911–1914). After emigrating in 1918, he took part in the struggle against Soviet power, mostly through his journalism. Quite a few of his works, which are devoted mainly to the economic development of Soviet Russia, were published in French and Russian periodicals from the early 1920s to the early 1930s. Kokovtsov analyzed military communism, the NEP, industrialization, and collectivization. In his opinion, Soviet power throughout its economic development was guided by the postulates of socialist doctrine and inflicted great damage on the national economy and thus created the preconditions for decline, famine, and mass discontent of the population. He also examined the problem of the tsarist government’s foreign debt, which the Bolsheviks refused to acknowledge. In an attempt to expose what he regarded as the criminal nature of the Soviet regime, Kokovtsov addressed such other matters as the execution of Nicholas II and his family, the repression of religion and the church, the destruction of the education system, the growing number of homeless children, and the decline of traditional family values. The Count offered a gloomy picture of the development of the USSR as a warning to bourgeois democratic countries about the danger of communist ideas and called on them to unite in order to protect Western civilization. His writings were instrumental in the formation of a negative image of the Communist regime in the West.