Abstracts of Main Articles

FUNDAMENTAL IMBALANCES IN INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL ARCHITECTURE

Author

Zvonova E.A., ScD (Economics), Professor, head of International Finance Department at Financial University under RF government; Kuznetsov A.V., ScD (Economics), senior research fellow, professor with the same department

Abstract

By applying systems methodology (involving the principle of unity of the historical and logical) to the analysis of the latest global economic evolution, the article authors identified two fundamental imbalances (two sets of imbalances) in international financial architecture (IFA): (1) savings and investments; (2) foreign debts. It is shown that the interconnection of the imbalances, generating a negative synergy, postpones the prospect of overcoming the global financial crisis and reduces the effectiveness of measures taken by all international regulators in terms of promoting economic growth in the world. Suggested, as an adequate response of Russia to the respective aspects of global challenges, the most close involvement of this country in the development of infrastructure in the new IFA clusters called to support implementation of the strategic priorities of monetary and financial development of countries — members of EEU and BRICS savings and investments.

Key words

international financial architecture (IFA), IFA fundamental imbalances, savings and investments imbalances, foreign debts imbalances, global financial crisis, international regulators, balance of payments current accounts, direct and portfolio foreign investments, debt crises, sovereign defaults, EU, EEU, BRICS.

 

RUSSIAN SCIENCE: CRACKDOWN GOES ON (ABOUT RADICAL REORGANIZATION OF STATE-FINANCED INSTITUTIONS UNDER MINISTRY OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF RUSSIA)

Author

Yakutin Yu.V., ScD (Economics), Professor, honored worker of science of the RF, academic adviser to «Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta» Publishing House; Zemlyakov D.N., ScD (Economics), Professor, head of Organization and Management Innovations Chair at G.V. Plekhanov Russian Economic University

Abstract

Reprint, from «Ekonomika i Zhizn» weekly No. 34 for 2016, of a problem article on the reorganization, first above written, carried out by way of a trite merger of two authoritative, prominent Russian academic institutions — Council for the Study of Production Forces and Institute of Macroeconomic Studies — by the Russian Academy of Foreign Trade — a Higher Education Institution, non-core (formally and virtually) for the ministry. The gist and contents of the authors’ valuations are reflected in the article title and in its three mentioned subsections: «The point is not in optimization of budget expenditures», «the ministry risks to be left without scientific support» and «Beneficiaries and consequences». And in explaining the idea of news story reproduction, the editors point to a number of motives, and the key one of these — continuation of the plot, long presented in the journal, according to which the «current basically radically liberal course in reforming the academic and educational sector allegedly, by definition, oriented to a free and democratic development of the controlled entity, is consistently accompanied, however, by the highly voluntaristic bureaucratic institutional decisions, so plainly destructive and absurd that even give rise to a question about their «beneficiaries».

Key words

reforming academic and educational sector, state-financed institutions under ministry of economic development of Russia, Council for the Study of Production Forces, Institute of Macroeconomic Studies, Russian Academy for Foreign Trade, Research Economic Institute under USSR Gosplan, import substitution, Strategic Planning in the Russian Federation Federal Law No. 172, A.V.Ulyukaev, S.G.Sinelnikov-Muryliov.

 

ON FORECASTING AND STRATEGIC PLANNING VOCATIONAL EDUCATION DEVELOPMENT

Author

Lisov S.V., PhD (Economics), senior research fellow at Russian State Geological Prospecting University

Abstract

The article attempts to outline some ways towards an adequate reflection of the tasks of professional training in strategic forecasting and planning documents at the macro-level and other levels of economic management. Account is taken of the relevant vast foreign managerial eхperience, national realities and theoretical legacy of individual Russian authors (including those related to integration of education, science and manufacture in terms of interconnection of educational, innovative and industrial policy of the state). The author substantiates, in particular, several suggestions on forming a system of strategic planning of staffing potentially significant sectors of economy. These suggestions concern (a) better structural balance of educational and production potential of the sector; (b) lend the sought system a multilevel (public, social, corporate) touch; (c) correlation of the major indicators of industrial science and technology (innovation) and educational policy (respective strategies, programs, projects). Suggested, as applied to the level of sectoral enterprises, a concrete method (expressed by a mathematical formula) of identifying future (for a five-year term) demand for training specialists of higher and specialized vocational education levels.

Key words

forecasting and planning vocational education development, higher vocational education, vocational secondary education, Strategic Planning in the Russian Federation Federal Law No. 172, integration of education, science and production, labor and educational services markets, unity of educational, innovative and industrial policy.

 

STOLEN KNOWLEDGE (ABOUT NEOCLASSICAL BORROWINGS FROM CLASSICAL POLITICAL ECONOMY)

Author

Buzgalin A.V., ScD (Economics), Professor with Political Economy Chair of the Economic Department of M.V.Lomonosov Moscow State University; Kolganov A.I., ScD (Economics), Professor, leading research fellow of the aforementioned department

Abstract

The article, published in the context of discussion on post-soviet destinies of political economy and its teaching at higher educational institutions, attempts at extensive proving of the non-trivial (and already challenged in the course of the aforementioned discussion) thesis according to which a number of postulates of modern neoclassical economic theory (economics) directly or indirectly borrowed from classical political economy, primarily from its ultimate — Marxist — version. The author believes that this relates, in particular, to the characteristics of the nature of market, to the formula of monetary circulation and to definition of profit. In providing several examples of such “plagiarism”, they show that the relevant provisions have been more deeply and extensively disclosed in the “original” — by the classics of political economy, and stress the necessity of involving their legacy in the course of the present-date teaching of general economic theory at higher educational institutions.

Key words

classical political economy, neoclassical economic theory (economics), teaching of economic theory, economic imperialism, Nobel Prize winners in economics, A.Smith, D.Ricardo, K.Marx, G.Becker, J.Keynes, I.Fisher, S.Levitt.

 

ABOUT V.I.SHCHERBAKOV MEMORIAL AND ANALYTICAL BOOK «CATASTROPHE COULD NOT HAVE OCCURRED. USSR RUIN: AN OUTWARD GLANCE FROM THE LAST UNION GOVERNMENT»

Abstract

Editorial — review in the issue’s criticism and bibliography subdivision.

In carrying on the long-standing tradition of presenting on the journal pages of the latest issuesof a unique book series «Russian Classical Library. Economy and Spirituality» published by «Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta» Publishing House, the editors comment on the new book of the series, named in the review headline, published in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of August-1991 events. The author of the presented publication is a historical personality: a prominent national statesman and a public figure, distinguished academic economist (ScD /Economics/, Professor), first vice-premier and minister of economy and forecasting in the last (headed by V. S. Pavlov) soviet government, and now one of the leaders of Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the RF, Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and Free Economic Society, as well as International Union of Economists and International Academy of Management. The article offers and substantiates the following value judgement: V.I.Shcherbakov book provides a «vast array of materials for serious — professional and scientific — reflections on the history of destruction of the Soviet Union and the respective consequences for Russia and the world at large. Materials quite concise in terms of information, facts, highly trustworthy and largely new (formerly unknown). And «in principle supporting our «company» ... evaluations of what, on the tip from one of the «perestroika foremen», is now referred to as a «Great antisocialist revolution of 1989­1991». From the point of view of editors and most active authors of the journal, «this bourgeois restoration counterrevolution turned to be great only and precisely in purely Herostratic, totally crisis generating terms».

Key words

book series «Russian Classical Library. Economy and Spirituality» published by «Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta» Publishing House, USSR ruin (collapse, disintegration), acceleration and perestroika, perestroika foremen, post-soviet reforms, GKChP (State Committee on the State of Emergency), M.S.Gorbachev, B.N.Yeltsyn, N.I.Ryzhkov, V.S.Pavlov, E.T.Gaidar, G.Kh.Popov.

 

ABOUT THE BOOK «POLITICAL ECONOMY: A SHORT COURSE» ED. BY D.V.VALOVOY

Author

Kulikov V.V., Sc.D. (Economics), Professor, merited scientist of the RF

Abstract

A review of scholarly and educational book, drafted by prominent college scholars and conspicuous statesmen, issued by the Academy of Labor and Social Relations and Eurasian Center for Strategic Studies. The reviewer, first, offers a general positive opinion on the book as the one laying out fundamental provisions of classical political economy (with the focus on the categories thereof which neoclassicists have ignored or vulgarized), designed for a wide audience and written in an easy and transparent language. Second, finds it reasonable to reprint the «. Course» in mass editions, given refinement of some of its provisions. Third, joins the book’s authoring team request to the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation to “include, since 2017, political economy in the State Educational Standard for its study in all forms of economic education.

Key words

classical political economy, neoclassical political economy (economics), teaching political economy, marginalism, market mechanism, financialisation, social state theory, K.Marx, V.I. Lenin, J. Stiglitz