Ideas and Ideals

In recent decades, economists are actively entering the space of other disciplines. This movement of economists into the field of research of other sciences was called “economic imperialism”. The result of this process is a more realistic representation the nature of man in economic science and the conditions for the formation of human behavior. One of the objects of economic research is culture: values, beliefs and models of human behavior. Analyzing the concept of cultural codes, V. L. Tambovtsev points out that the study of the individual cultural institutions influence can be more effective than the research work within the concept of “general - cultural” factors, i.e. culture as a “homogeneous monolith”. It is more productive to use the “piece by piece” strategy to explore its position on cultural phenomena, studying  the impact of a single cultural phenomenon on society. In this case, the influence of certain cultural institutions on the formation of certain behaviors is of interest. The purpose of the article is to analyze philosophy as a specific model of behavior, the formation of which can contribute to certain cultural practices. Objectives: to define philosophy as a specific model of behavior; to analyze the relationship of philosophy with value attitudes common in society; to indicate the potential of analyzing philosophy as a specific model of behavior for an economist. Conclusion: philosophy may be of interest to an institutional economist as a specific practice, i.e. as a model of human behavior that can be studied in a language of institutional economics. The movement of “economic imperialism” in the direction of philosophy will help to better understand the nature of man and the logic of his choice of actions.

The article discusses the philosophical problems of the technocratic, bureaucratic nature of modern scientific management, indifferent to the moral sense of man. The purpose of the article is to consider the foundations of the humanistic concept of scientific management as an incentive moral communication that inspires a person. The author introduces the concepts of ‘metaphysics of management’ and ‘inspirational management’. He also determines the main properties of inspirational scientific management: the moral nature of values ​​and ideals, synergy, thought-sensory rationality, the unity of explicit and implicit, scientific and non-scientific knowledge.
Inspirational management is carried out in the process of popularizing scientific knowledge, system integration. The process of scientific management based on system integration presupposes, firstly, orientation of scientists towards moral meanings and feelings, professional self-improvement and civic activity. Secondly, it implies a team of like-minded people united by a common dream, values ​​and ideals. Thirdly, it is based on the development of applied scientific theories, social technologies, which have a symbolic character of incentive communication. Fourthly, in the process of extensive discussions, the popularization of scientific knowledge is taking place. Knowledge and scientific management acquire the mental-sensory character of persuasion. Systematic scientific thinking, the pathos of moral feeling induces a person to believe in his own strength, to achieve the set goal, to become better. It is noted that inspirational management has the properties of science and art. The author considers the main incentive symbols of the inspirational concept of management: system thinking, the meaning of life at work, scientific knowledge, an educated person - a professional and a citizen, progress, globalization of mankind, a social idealized project. The basic principles of the inspirational concept of management are based on the methods of dialectics and synergetics. The author comes to the conclusion that metaphysics of management presupposes the disclosure and realization of the essential moral human qualities and meanings. It is substantiated that the metasystem for the development of inspirational management is a social idealized project that includes elements of scientific, philosophical knowledge, dreams, utopia, ideology, moral, including religious values ​​and ideals.

The article examines the development of the Russian economy in its modern capitalist period. The authors emphasize that when analyzing the dynamics of GDP, there are five stages that have significant differences: growth rates, models that stimulate growth, sources of financing for economic growth, and other reasons, the totality of which determines the ‘face’ of each of the selected stages. The authors substantiate the necessity and possibility of using the potential of the financial market to stimulate economic growth. At the same time, considerable attention is paid to the justification of the impact of indicators that characterize the financial market within the framework of the institutional (financial institutions) and instrumental (financial instrument markets) approaches. The authors highlight five stages of Russia’s economic growth: economic (transformational) decline (1991-1998), rapid recovery economic growth (1999-2007), decaying recovery economic growth (2008-2012), stagnant economic growth (2013-2019). The article shows the importance of the financial market for the implementation of the main tasks at each stage from the standpoint of expert assessment of indicators of the development level of the financial market: depth (the importance of institutions and financial market instruments relative to macroeconomic indicators), availability of services provided by institutions and financial instrument markets, stability (the ability of financial institutions to continue providing services in the event of force majeure and financial market volatility), efficiency (the attractiveness of the market for business).

The authors of the article believe that in 2020, a new fifth stage of Russia’s economic growth began, the potential of which can be revealed through the use of financial boost tools. At present, Russia is in a unique situation of a combination of a crisis based on both a demand model and a supply model. The authors propose specific measures to use the potential of these models. The combination of the measures used will reveal new opportunities for the development of the economy and society. These opportunities can be obtained by using the ideology of the strategy of accelerated financial development of the economy – financial boost.

In recent years, the digital revolution and, especially, the problems associated with the transformation of the economy have become more and more interesting. However, few studies are devoted to issues related to the development of new methods of risk assessment and their impact on social processes in the context of the formation and development of the digital economy. It is unknown how the consequences of the digital revolution will affect the processes taking place in society. The purpose of this work is to study possible risks that may arise in the process of transforming the economy into a digital one, and primarily social ones. To study the risks of the digital economy, we use hierarchical methods that are characterized by a sequential algorithm for dividing a given set of items into subordinate subsets. The results of the study indicate that the risks of the digital economy have specific features that distinguish them from traditional ones. The authors demonstrate the classification of digital economy risks and show the place of social risks in it. A dynamic model of social risks in the digital economy is proposed. It is established that social risks in the digital economy are growing more and more from year to year. Research has shown that there is an urgent need to address the issue of skills imbalance in the labor market. It is necessary to increase the number of competitive employees who have a huge amount of knowledge, skills, and competencies necessary for this time, and constantly update them. The implementation of all this is impossible without the involvement of the state, the education system, public figures and the population.

Machine building is a leading industry in advanced countries. It provides many industries with machines and equipment as it is the main link in the system of intersectoral linkages. Innovations in engineering create the basis for increasing production and qualitative changes in the structure of industry, that creates a synergistic effect for the economy as a whole. Thus, it secures full employment for highly skilled employees, promotes the growth of the level of educational background of the population and contributes to the development of the scientific and technological potential of the country. However, underinvestment in innovation technologies and processes, a limited character of the import substitution model and an insufficient support of the export model greatly hinder rapid and effective development of the machine-building industry. Specific peculiarities of the machine building development such as R&D intensity, labor intensity, and the intensity of metal use, the need in cooperation and consumer orientation influence their geographic location. Despite the decline in the number of enterprises and employment in the machine-building industry, the industry’s contribution to the GVA is stable. At the same time, the state’s interest in the development of all sectors with high added value will influence the future of engineering. In statistics innovative activity in mechanical engineering began to be considered relatively recently. The highest rates of innovation are high-tech engineering. The state’s share in supporting innovation in both manufacturing and engineering is increasing. The coefficients of specialization are calculated for all Federal districts and each of the 85 subjects of the Federation for the period from 2007 to 2017. Calculations were carried out for all types of economic activity, according to the classifier of OKVED. The specialization industries for each of the regions are identified. The group of regions where engineering is concentrated is defined. These 19 regions did not change their industry of specialization during the analyzed period from 2008 to 2017.

The subject of this work is the uneven development of infrastructure in municipal districts of the Russian Federation. The article presents the author’s method of typology of municipalities by the level of infrastructure development, which allows overcoming the shortcomings of the information base of municipal statistics using the data imputation algorithm. The proposed approach solves the problem of weak population structure using a combination of four methods of multidimensional statistics (cluster analysis, factor analysis, metric multidimensional scaling and discriminant analysis) in the framework of a combination of variational and aggregate concepts of data typology. The idea of the considered method is that if an object falls into the same type as a result of applying different typology methods, then it is a stable representative (“core”) of this type. A set of such objects for each type is used as training samples for discriminant analysis, which allows you to typologize the remaining transition objects using mathematical tools. The methodology was tested on a set of municipal districts of the Russian Federation (in 2018). There are 4 types of municipal districts with high, satisfactory, insufficient and low level of infrastructure development. As of 2018, 89 (5.1%) municipal districts of the Russian Federation have a high level of infrastructure development, 308 (17.6%) – satisfactory, 570 (32.6%) – insufficient, 783 (44.7%) – low. The inverse relationship between the level of infrastructure development of municipal districts and the degree of urbanisation of the territory is shown: the largest number of districts with highly developed infrastructure is located in territories with a significant share of the rural population.

The article deals with debatable questions about the relationship between economic growth and financial development. Both foreign and Russian authors have opposite points of view on the relationship between economic growth and financial development. The article states that financial development for developing countries is a factor of economic growth. The authors give a review of the literature proving the influence of financial development and its mechanism – the financial market – on economic growth. To illustrate this conclusion, they analyze the research aimed at studying the theoretical aspects of assessing the ratio of the level of financial market development and economic growth. The authors also investigate the formation of a methodological framework for assessing the impact of the level of financial market development on economic growth; identify the methods to quantitatively measure the level of financial market development and economic growth. The article analyzes the recommendations to develop measures to enhance the significance of financial market for economic growth of the country.

Due to the extremely low level of current Russian economic scientists and practitioners, we can only place our hope on the younger generation. In this regard, the article considers the textbook on Economic Theory recommended by the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation for students of 10-11^th grades, currently in its 26th edition. The textbook arouses no interest, only antipathy to Economics among school students. It is unjustifiably focused on economic theory, not practice. The textbook is too complicated and boring, almost completely ignoring the economic problems of Russia and Third World countries.

It is argued that the course of Economics for high school students can be not only informative and useful, but also involving. The Soviet and Russian economies are full of mysteries, which can make use of the enthusiasm school students have for solving mysteries and puzzles.

The author suggests a program for a course in Economics for school students, comprising 10 new chapters, as well as a summary of the new chapters.

The author also presents economic entities interested in high-quality school textbooks.

The textbook recommended by the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation is compared to the previously published more informative and involving textbooks for high school students.

A significant part of the definitions of the subject matter of economics goes back to the already classical definition of L. Robbins. According to the authors, the definition of the subject matter of economics according to Robbins is not entirely satisfactory. The norm is the allocation of the subject of science in the subject area. The selection of a subject of science by modus operandi violates the logic of constructing a disciplinary matrix of scientific knowledge.

We agree that the definition of economic science in terms of material goods is narrow and not entirely satisfactory. However, replacing it with a definition through modus operandi is not an extension of the ‘material’ approach to understanding values, but a transition to a completely different logical level.

We propose the following definitions: value –a rare utility (absolutely not necessarily material). An economic system is a system that can create and distribute values. Economics is a science that studies economic systems.

The choice of an individual between different types of activities, and / or the use of alternative types of resources, although it is an economic choice, but the study of such an ‘atomic’ system is not enough to understand the properties of economic systems. The subject of economics appears with the advent of society. The social structure that ensures this coordination of production and exchange is the structure of the economic system. At the same time, it is the subject of economic science.

The question of which aspect in the economic system is the main one — exchange or production — is the form of the question of what is the ontology of the economic universe: is it linear or non-linear? A complex non-linear system of the economy is made by two aspects: the use of durable assets in the production, as a result of which economic activity is ‘stretched' in time, and the great depth of the division of labor. Thus, the question of understanding the subject of economics is associated with a number of aspects that are significant for theory (and practice), ultimately –with the perception of the world –and the economic world as part of it.

The development and widespread adoption of digital economy in the last two decades inevitably had strong impact on the theory and practice of marketing. Under the influence of e-Commerce the form and content of marketing has changed. Today we can talk about the formation of a new field of study – Internet marketing. However, even in the European literature, the description of Internet marketing is fragmentary, Russian authors often do not consider Internet marketing as an independent direction in marketing. This article describes the role of e-Commerce in the economy. The author considers the role of e-Commerce in the world economy and in the economy of individual countries. About 10% of world trade is already carried out via the Internet, in some countries (China, Japan, the UK) the share of e-Commerce in GDP is more than 20%. The growth rate of e-Commerce is also impressive – 30% per year. The Russian e-Commerce market and the Chinese e-Commerce market are analyzed separately. The author highlights the fact that e-Commerce has made a great contribution to the development of China’s economy. Internet marketing in the article is considered as an integral part of e-Commerce, fully responsible for all the interaction of the company and the external environment through the Internet. Basing on the research of some writers, the author concludes that Internet marketing is advisable to study as an independent scientific discipline. The article identifies and investigates the main changes that have occurred in marketing under the influence of e-Commerce: 1) change of marketing orientation from goods to customers; 2) multi-channel approach to promotion; 3) mobility; 4) adaptability and interactivity of marketing; 5) significant increase in audience coverage.