Vol 28, No 5 (2017)

The author analyzes the risks of dismantling of the European Union posed by the current monetary policy, under which the single currency of the European Union not only retarded economic growth, but also led to economic contraction and high unemployment. Analyzing the widely debated idea of federalization as a way to tackle the challenge of Euroscepticism in major European countries and estimating the net transfers that are necessary for the proper functioning of the recipient country, the author concludes that federalization can only be considered a real action provided the current policy pursued by Germany as the hegemon of the European Union is to change. In the conclusion, the article reviews the problem of monetary independence as a necessary condition for the implementation of a national industrial policy based on the experience of France.

This paper considers the role of innovations and technologies in modern social and economic development. There is a discrepancy between the declarative goals contained in government documents on the role of science, technology, and the actual results achieved. It has been shown that in the tough external environment for Russia there is no alternative to the development and creation of domestic competitive technologies. In order to make full use of the scientific and technological potential that has been preserved in the country, it is first of all necessary to restore the full innovative cycle and stimulate the interest of Russian companies in national innovative solutions and competitive technologies. The responsible role of the state in reforming the domestic scientific sector, as well as in the harmonization of relations between the state, business, scientific community, and society as a whole has been emphasized.

The article analyzes the impact of the collapse of world oil prices on the reduction of defense budget, production of weapons, innovative and personnel potential of the defense industry, and on country’s defense capability. Some proposals for the concept of structural changes in the defense industry have been formulated based on experience converting the defense industries in the Soviet Union, the United States, China, and France.

The article deals with problems of the reindustrialization of the market economy. The author argues the need to change the organizational forms of industrial production, strengthen state support for processing enterprises using natural rent, that arises in extractive industry in order to increase the production of investment in the machine-building and industrial complex.

The problems of implementing managerial and institutional innovations in the sphere of purchasing commodities, works, and services in order to meet the public needs have been considered in the paper. The main focus has been directed at the theoretical and practical foundation of forming a public purchasing institution, a contact model for purchasing management, and the strategic problems of increasing the efficiency of meeting public needs in the mid- and long-term prospects.

Topical issues of enhancing innovative activity in regions of Russia are studied using the LASSO method for ranking various factors in terms of their impact on the release of innovative products in a particular region. It has been shown that, when developing national concepts of socioeconomic development, it must necessarily be taken into account that it is wrong to focus on average regions as regional specific features. The forecast calculations of the volume of innovative goods, works, and services have been carried out for the most important regions of the Siberian Federal District. Urgent problems of innovative activity have been identified for regions of Russia with different levels of development.

The article considers different ways to provide social services to seniors and addresses government social spending on old age.

This article has considered an approach to forecasting the number and age–sex composition of disabled people aged 20 and older in Russia. The approach is based on hypotheses that connect the dynamics of disability level with mortality change scenarios in demographic projections. The results show that a decrease in the number of disabled people at ages up to 60 years and an increase in their number after the age 60 years, as well as an increase in disability prevalence among the population aged over 20 years due to demographic aging should be expected in the coming decades.