The dynamics of development and the structure of the economy of Russian regions are considered in the article on the basis of data on the volume of goods shipped, works performed and services performed by own forces for a full range of organizations in 2019 and 2020, as well as industrial production indices; the “shift and share” method is used. It is shown that, as in all previous crises, the sectoral structure of the regional economy was a significant factor in their economic dynamics. Despite the specifics of the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic (the maximum rate of decline in some types of services and the extraction of fuel and energy resources; on the contrary, significant growth in healthcare, the production of medicines and medical materials, and the IT sector), in 2020, patterns typical of all economic crises appeared. This is a positive impact on the economic dynamics of the regions of a high degree of economic diversification and the availability of high-tech industries, highly qualified personnel; as a result, in economically developed regions, restrictions in certain types of services were mitigated by the active introduction of digital technologies, in some cases even compensated by the dynamic development of other sectors. The traditional differences between the production of durable goods, which is experiencing a strong decline, and the production of everyday goods, which is relatively stable during the crisis, have also emerged.

The need to transform economic and social policies into more effective policies requires the special attention of the authorities and the expert community to the Far East as a region with significant potential for economic growth. The article, through the prism of historical events, examines the place of the Far East in the world economy within the framework of the current system of international political, foreign trade and financial relations against the background of a decrease in the level of confidence in these areas, which largely depends on excessive regulation of the most significant regional entities and tightening of various kinds of sanctions by the most developed states. The reason for the turn of Russia to the east is justified. Historical milestones of the development and development of the Far East over a 300-year period and its potential, place in the economic activity of the Russian Federation and its foreign economic relations are analyzed in detail. Examples are given to a certain extent confirming the emerging transition from a purely subsidized policy of past decades to an investment strategy for the future development of the region. Optimal forms and mechanisms of interaction aimed at improving the investment climate, developing transport, energy, industrial and tourism infrastructure, as well as ensuring a high level of environmental safety of the region are identified.

The complexity of the implementation of regional policy in federal states, due, on the one hand, to the diversity of regions and their features, on the other – the presence of several levels of its implementation, determines the relevance of research devoted to the study of this instrument of public administration. The article suggests an approach that allows differentiating the goals of regional socio-economic policy by its levels. The composition is specified, and the hierarchy of goals of the regional socio-economic policy of Russia is developed. It is proved that in current conditions, the priority goal of the regional policy of the federal center should be to ensure the integrity and economic security of the state in terms of regional development, the regional policy of the subjects of the Federation – to achieve positive dynamics of the quality of life of the population of the region. It is shown that in the foreseeable future, the problem of smoothing interregional inequality and ensuring balanced socio-economic development of the country and regions on this basis will retain the status of a strategic goal of the state regional socio-economic policy in the Russian Federation. The implementation of the presented approach to goal-setting in the practice of public administration will contribute to the formation of an effective regional policy as the most essential condition for the balanced spatial development of the Russian Federation.

Stress testing as an effective method of risk management and crisis management can serve as an effective tool for predicting financial stability, particularly under the impact of ESG risks for companies in various industries working on the subjects’ territory of the Russian Federation. The article considers an approach to stress testing algorithm development for metals industry. At the first stage the current state of the metals industry and trends of further development observed by analysts are considered, the largest domestic representatives of metallurgy are analyzed and their key targets and costs of environmental projects are highlighted. Further, industry risk drivers for organizations doing business in the metals industry are presented. After identifying risk drivers, an approach to assessment of the impact of identified ESG risks is presented, then an algorithm for assessing the impact of ESG risks on the cash flow of the Russian metals industry company is formulated and a scheme of ESG stress testing for a metallurgical company is presented. The conclusion of the study identifies various mathematical models that can be used to improve the forecast quality of the impact of ESG factors, gives the key challenges to be resolved for the development of ESG risk management and the improvement of ESG culture in the business community as a whole, and summarizes the benefits of ESG stress testing, which can be used for a whole list of different managerial and methodological actions.

Strategic planning for the development of manufacturing industries in the Russian Federation should be based on the results of a comprehensive analysis of the existing level of industrial development of the regional and national economy, prospects and mechanisms for the development of industrial potential, including the definition of the industry specifics of the subjects of the Russian Federation, planned statistical indicators in terms of the growth of high-tech products and taking into account the implementation of import substitution programs. The article considers the current state of strategic planning in the practice of manufacturing industries of the Russian Federation. The review of the main directions of the state industrial policy in relation to manufacturing industries in the field of strategic planning is given, as well as the key challenges and opportunities for the development of this activity in Russia are considered, the state of the manufacturing industry at the national level is assessed on the basis of statistical reports. The proposals for expanding the presence of manufacturing products on the Russian market under import substitution programs are considered and the prospects and necessary conditions for the development of manufacturing industries in the Russian Federation until 2024 and for the period up to 2035 are predicted.

In the first half of 2021, positive trends in the economy led to a pronounced increase in revenues of the consolidated budgets of RF subjects. Corporate income tax and personal income tax receipts increased most significantly. In most subjects of the Russian Federation, this year’s revenue growth has compensated for last year’s drop, but in a number of regions whose economies have a raw material orientation, the 2019 pre-crisis year indicators have not yet been exceeded. The total amount of the federal transfers remained practically at the level of 2020. At the same time, the structure of this aid has changed significantly. Unconditional grants receipts have decreased and subsidy receipts have increased significantly. The growth of expenditures of sub-federal budgets lags behind the dynamics of revenues, ensuring a pronounced budget surplus. The main areas of spending remain social policy, education and the national economy. Federal subsidies account for a significant portion of the increase in spending on social policy. The high growth rate of expenditures on the national economy is largely ensured by one subject of the Russian Federation Moscow. Health care spending, which grew ahead of schedule in 2020, has declined this year, but remained above precrisis 2019 levels. While in general all subjects of the Russian Federation executed their consolidated budgets in the first half of the year with a surplus, in a number of regions there is a budget deficit. In several regions, the surplus values turned out to be very significant due to the growth of income, which was not predicted.

The growth of regional debts produces risks both at the regional level and in the sphere of intergovernmental relations. The article shows that with a low debt burden at a long-term level, the subjects of the Russian Federation are highly differentiated by the level of debt, and even with a decrease in overall debt, a variation of debt load is growing. On the basis of cluster analysis, four groups of the subjects of the Russian Federation were allocated, depending on the variation of the debt burden and the share of social spending in total regional expenditures. It is concluded that the level of debt burden and its dynamics are explained both by the socio-economic factors for the regional development and the quality of budget management in any subject of the Russian Federation. Accordingly, the procedure for the distribution of intergovernmental transfers and budgetary rules should be agreed with the accounting of objective relationships and institutional effects.

It is officially known that democracy in the United States of America became the main idea more than two hundred years old. For a long time, it was considered the most progressive and standard for the whole world. But now people are increasingly asking questions about whether there really is a democracy in America. Is United States is really a democratic state? This article examines various aspects of the democratic structure of the state, including theoretical, historical and legal, as well as the current political situation in the United States. Based on the analysis of the US electoral legislation and the work of the American electoral system, it is concluded that, on the one hand, the citizens of the country are not guaranteed the exercise of their active and passive electoral rights. And on the other hand, key laws and political decisions are made without relying on the opinion of the citizens of the country, which does not allow us to classify such a way of governing the country as unambiguously democratic. The presidential election-2020, with its numerous violations and mass riots, was particularly criticized. To a large extent, this situation in the American electoral system is explained by fact, that the orientation of The Founding Fathers of the United States was not to ensure democratic governance of the country. They argued for strengthen American federalism, which reflected the complexity and archaic nature of the electoral system. Its allows us to conclude that neither formallyconstitutionally, nor in fact, the United States is not a democracy. The system of power that has historically developed in the United States is most accurately described by the term “oligarchy”, which generates a number of both political and constitutional-legal consequences.

Over the past 70 years, human capital, which is the most important factor in the innovation process and innovation activity in the United States, has acquired spatial forms corresponding to territorial innovation systems. Under the influence of the instruments of the state regional innovation policy, the regionalization of the development of human capital in the United States has gone through its own evolutionary path, dialectically coupled with the cyclical processes of socio-economic and technological development of society. The tendencies of human capital regionalization revealed on the basis of the systemic and evolutionary approaches reveal the subject-object essence of the research. The phenomenon of regionalization of human capital development investigated in the work is reflected in the dynamics of average annual growth rates, under the influence of the unambiguous in its direction, but having subregional differences in the instruments of selective equalization and proactive regional innovation policy, as well as differences at the level of the leading states of the United States.

In China, as in other countries, ESG factors are becoming more and more important in the investment discourse and, in particular, in the reporting of public companies. However, if factor E (environmental) is actively discussed both within public companies and by the Chinese government, then reporting on factors S (social) and G (governance) is still in its infancy, since it must be borne in mind that the Chinese private sector is in in conjunction with the official rhetoric of the Chinese government, and the difference in the perception of social and managerial factors between Chinese business and Western companies determines the inconsistency of Chinese reporting with Western standards. This article analyzes the use of ESG principles by Chinese companies, the impact of decarbonization on China’s Belt and Road investment project, as well as China’s international cooperation on decarbonization and ESG principles.