Russian Regions in January-September 2018

Natalia Zubarevich – Main Research fellow of the Demography and Migration Research Department, Institute of Social Analysis and Forecasting, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Doctor of Geographic Sciences, Professor. E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Multidirectional trends were relevant for development of regions during three quarters of 2018. On one hand, industrial growth continued in ѕ of regions, consumption increased practically everywhere, unemployment did not experience any visible changes. On the other hand, new housing supply decreased in half of regions and decline of real households incomes continued in ѕ of regions. Regional budgets improved while number of territories demonstrating deficit reduced by half.

Key words: RF regions, socio-economic situation of regions, regional budgets.

Agrarian Statistics: Correction After Agrarian Census

Vasily Uzun – Main Research fellow of the Center for Agro-Food Policy, Institute for Applied Economic Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; Main Research fellow of the Agricultural Policy Department of the Gaidar Institute, Doctor of Economic Sciences, Professor. Е-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Methods of statistical survey do not always allow to objectively estimate agrarian activities. Corrected Rosstat data have to be taken into consideration for evaluation of the agricultural development.

Key words: agriculture, agricultural census, statistical observation, corrected Rosstat data, agricultural organizations, peasant (farm) holdings, Rosstat.

Labor Migration: View of the Young People

Tatyana Klyachko – Director of Center of the Economics for Continuing Education, Institute for Applied Economic Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Doctor of Economic Sciences, Professor. Е-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Elena Semionova – Senior Research fellow of the Center of the Economics for Continuing Education, Institute for Applied Economic Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Candidate of Economic Sciences. E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

One of the paramount questions of analyzing labor migration consists in why people move from one country to another or from one region to another. As a result, at least why other people remain to live in their native region, country and do not migrate. The young people free from family, financial and other responsibilities one can view as the most prone for labor migration group of people. In view of this, it seems very interesting to study issues of labor migration of the young people as well as to analyze the factors affecting its impact on the migration sentiments.

The Center of continuing education under the Institute of applied economic studies conducts annual monitoring of employment of the graduates of educational institutions of various levels. The article provides findings of the evaluation of migration sentiments as well as factors which strengthen or weaken labor mobility of the young people in Russian regions.

Key words: monitoring, youth in employment, migration, transition to employment.

Survey of Current Business (September-December 2018)

Sergey Aukutsionek – Head of Center for Transition Economy Studies, Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russian Academy of Sciences, Candidate of Economic Sciences. E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Andrey Yegorov – Research fellow of the Center for Transition Economy Studies, Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russian Academy of Sciences, Candidate of Economic Sciences. E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Tatyana Serzhantova – Senior Research fellow of the Center for Transition Economy Studies, Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russian Academy of Sciences. E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Stanislav Belyakov – Research fellow of the Center for Transition Economy Studies, Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russian Academy of Sciences. E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Many of the surveyed by REB indicators in September remained in the zone of low values, and some continued to decline. The diffusion indices of wage, employment and output are falling fourth month in a row. For the same period of time is growing the share of enterprises that do not purchase equipment for 2 or more months successively: from June – the most «successful» in terms of investment month – by September it increased by 23 percentage points and reached 51% – the maximum value in 2 years. The diffusion index of expected in three months financial condition lost 12 points. Last time it was so low at the beginning of 2009.

At the same time, in September the volume of orders increased by 7 points (relative to the normal level for this month).

Key words: industry, industrial enterprises, price level, wages, employment, output, investment, indebtedness to banks, order-book level, stocks of finished products, capacity utilization rate, risk of bankruptcy, economic policy, crisis duration.

Constraints for Сarry Forward of Losses in Russia in 2017–2020

Elisey Leonov – Research fellow of Budget Policy Department of the Gaidar Institute; Junior Research fellow of Laboratory for Studies of Tax Policy, Institute for Applied Economic Research, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. Е-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

In the budget sphere 2017 demonstrated significant growth of profit tax receipts up to 3.6% of GDP while during the previous four years it did not exceed 3.2% of GDP. At the same time profit of profit-making organizations fell by 10% (taking into account non-operating income by 14.5%). Experts explain such income growth first of all owing to the fact that from 1 January 2017 the norm of carry forward of losses by not more than 50% of the volume of taxable income was introduced.

The article is dedicated to the analysis of whether there was the effect of introduction of this norm on the budget revenues and what additional effects this can create for the Russian economy.

Key words: shortfall in budget revenue, tax offset of losses, losses reducing tax base.

Industrial Growth limitations in 2018: Enterprises’ Opinion

Sergey Tsukhlo – Head of Business Surveys Department of the Gaidar Institute, Candidate of Economic Sciences. E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

In the course of monthly surveys which have been carried out by the Institute for Economic Policy since 1992, Russian industrial enterprises are asked to identify factors which hinder output growth. Insufficient domestic demand has been a major problem for the industry since the period of the 2008–2009 crisis.

Key words: Russian industry, output growth constraints, output, domestic demand, export demand.

Prospects for Smart-Contracts Use in Financial Sphere

Alina Grebenkina – Junior Research fellow of the Center for the Study of Central Banks, Institute of Applied Economic Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; Postgraduate Student, Faculty of Economics, Lomonosov Moscow State University. E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Andrey Zubarev – Senior Research fellow of the Laboratory of Mathematical Modeling of Economic Processes, Institute of Applied Economic Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Candidate of Economic Sciences. E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The paper provides an analysis of key features of smart-contracts and examines an opportunity of their use in Russian and in the world financial sector. We check for cointegration in time series of ICO volumes and cryptocurrencies value and apply case-study approach to identify successful and promising application of smart-contract technology in various projects in financial and banking sector.

Smart-contracts technology can be successfully used in financial sector to eliminate intermediaries and to decrease spatiotemporal costs, information asymmetry costs and other types of transaction costs. ICO market is a key driver of smart-contracts technology, but the lack of proper national regulation of ICO and its sensitivity to cryptocurrencies’ market conditions reduces the rate of technology expansion in the short run. Nevertheless, some significant introduction of smart-contract technology into financial sector projects can be implemented in the nearest future, on the horizon of several years, which can provide a high potential for the increase in competition, operational efficiency and diversity of projects.

Key words: smart-contracts, blockchain, ICO, financial sector.

Russia as International Donor in 2017

Yury Zaitsev – Senior Research fellow of the Foreign Trade Department, Institute for Applied Economic Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; Senior Research fellow of the Institute of International Economics and Finance, Russian Foreign Trade Academy, Candidate of Economic Sciences. Е-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Alexander Knobel – Head of Foreign Trade Department of the Gaidar Institute; Director of Center for Foreign Trade Department, Institute for Applied Economic Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Candidate of Economic Sciences. Е-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Russian Federation continued to strengthen its international donor position in 2017. Russia spends more than $1bn annually on international development assistance programs and projects. Building a good-neighbourliness belt around the country as part of its economic support of CIS nations remains top priority for Russia.

Key words: Russia’s economic assistance, official assistance in devepment, international development promotion, international donor.

Bank Lending in January-September 2018: Promotion of the Economic Growth

Michael Khromov – Head of Department for Financial Studies of the Gaidar Institute; Senior Research fellow of the Center of Structural Research, Institute for Applied Economic Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. Е-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

In 2018, the dynamic development of bank lending took place in all the main segments of the money market. Nominal indices of the debt and lending have attained the new maximum. A positive net contribution of bank lending to households’ disposable cash resources was feasible on the back of reduction of interest rates and extension of more loans.

Key words: Russian banking sector, retail bank lending, housing loans, consumer loans, credit interest rates.

Fixed Investment in January-September 2018: Convincing Growth with Some Reservations

Alexey Vedev – Head of the Center of Structural Research, Institute for Applied Economic Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; Leading Research fellow of Department for Financial Studies of the Gaidar Institute, Doctor of Economic Sciences. Е-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Olga Berezinskaya – Research fellow of the Center of Structural Research, Institute for Applied Economic Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; Research fellow of the Department for Finsancial Studies of the Gaidar Institute. Е-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

In January-September 2018, fixed investment went up by 4.1% against the same period of the previous year. According to the official statistics the Russian economy overcomes the investment pause relatively slowly but at stable rates. This data will add optimism for the public annual report although it is hard for the expert community to share such optimism.

Key words: fixed investment, investment structure, investment pause, economic growth.