Interest to the territory of the Arctic can be explained due to its great natural resources — water, energy, mineral and the prospects for the mastering of these resources and the development of the Northern Sea Route (NSR), the transformation of this infrastructure project into a convenient global transport artery with a competitive potential. Although the division of the Arctic into sectors was accepted by the world community in 1926, the latest discoveries of the largest oil and gas fields radically changed the situation — a fierce struggle began for the recognition of the legal rights of certain individual circumpolar states, including Russia, over these stocks. Environmental problems are particularly acute, since the natural environment is the basis of life for the indigenous peoples of the North. A number of specialized international organizations were created with the aim to protect the unique natural landscape of the arctic northern polar zone. Special attention is paid to the origins and the present situation with the icebreaker fleet, organizational and legal problems, constraining transits and regional transportation along the Northern Sea Route and its subsequent fate. As a positive example of international cooperation, the paper indicates to the commissioning of the «Yamal SPG» liquefied gas production plant and to the construction of the Sabetta seaport. Now the bottleneck of the infrastructure of the NSR is the shortage of ports, capable of accept high-capacity vessels and equipped with large container terminals.

During recent years the changes, occurring in the sphere of employment policy in the labour markets, as well as gradual introduction into practice of various countries of gathering information in the context of labour activity forms resulted in the need of the revision of earlier adopted international standards. It’s connected with the fact that in normative documents is presented the definition of unemployment without the criterion of «job search»; were adopted new indicators for the measurement of potential labour force, incomplete employment and underutilization of labour force. In article analyses the situation of underutilization of labour force since it’s important for the characteristic of the region in the context of the unsatisfied need in employment. The information, offered in the paper, can be used for the wider monitoring of labour market, for the researches of volume and trends in the sphere of unemployment, for the assessment of integration problems at the labour market and the interaction between employment and poverty, for forecasting of trends of regions’ socio-economic development.

Strategizing the spatial development of the Russian Federation is an extremely complex, multifaceted task, which affects not only the traditional problem of the location of productive forces, but also a wide range of issues, concerning the ratio of different types of settlements, agglomeration processes, strengthening the role of each type of settlements and agglomerations in ensuring sustainable socio-economic development of the country and its regions. The active discussion around the dilemma “mega-cities and/or small and medium-sized cities”, which actively unfolded during the discussion of the draft of the spatial development Strategy, naturally didn’t lead to the formation of a mono polar position on this issue. Formally, newly adopted document paid tribute to the leading role of mega cities and large agglomerations in the development of the country’s economy and its modernization on the innovative basis, but also proceeds from the fact that the implementation of this trend of socio-economic development should not lead to the launch of the bulk of small settlements. This situation gives the reason to presume that many questions of the spatial development of the Russian economy haven’t yet received an adequate answer. This, in particular, concerns the settlement aspect of spatial Strategy. In addition, it is not clear what should be the program-target tools of the Spatial development strategy of the Russian Federation and what role national projects can play in this sphere.

The institution of initiative or participatory budgeting is considered today as the most important prerequisite for increasing the participation of population and business in determining the directions of budgetary resources’ spending and hence in the development of local selfgovernment. To day considerable experience in initiative and participatory budgeting has been accumulated both in Russia and in foreign countries. Taking into account historical features and specific problems, facing a particular territory, various mechanisms of this institution are used. The article deals with the specifics of this form of budgeting and the problems it allows to solve. Basing on the analysis of Russian and foreign experience, the author comes to the conclusion concerning the need of further development of this institution on the basis of the formation of the necessary legislative framework.

In the process of the execution of consolidated budgets of the subjects of Federation in 2018  here were such positive events as strong revenues’ growth, significant budget surplus indicators in the most of the regions and the total reduction of the debt burden. But all these events did not lead to the evident growth of real incomes of the population. Profit tax revenues grew most significantly in the past year due to the increasing energy prices. Federal grants to the budgets of subjects of the Russian Federation increased considerably. The latter took place together with the shift from the goal-oriented kinds of support to regions (subsidies, subventions and other transfers) to the non-conditional kinds of grants. In the same time these is a shift from formalized to non-formalized categories of grants. In 2018 Russian regions succeeded to preserve the tendency towards the increase of the social expenditures. Significant volumes of consolidated budget surplus of several regions are a matter of grave concern because the high level of budget surplus exists in these regions together with serious decrease of real incomes of the population.

Traditionally, one of the objectives of fiscal policy is smoothing the effects of fluctuations in business activity. In this connection, in the periods of recession, there should be a stimulating policy, and in the periods of recovery – restraining policy. Fiscal policy in Russia, as it’s shown in the article, is primarily procyclical. During the 2015 recession, according to the  calculations using multipliers, government spending contributed to the reduction of GDP rather than to the support of its growth. Later, despite a significant increase in the revenues of the expanded government budget and the shift in priorities from defense and security financing to social sphere, the effect of the increase in budget expenditures turned out to be negative. The article also discusses the state of the budget sphere following the results of 2018, which showed the restoration of economic growth.

Modern regional and municipal budgetary policy is characterized with the high level of centralization of the budgetary system. In order to search the internal reserves to improve budgetary policy at the territorial level, it’s interesting to consider it in the context of identifying and harmonizing the interests of territorial authorities, population and business. The paper considers the opportunities of coordinating the interests of territorial authorities and the population in the framework of such financial interaction mechanisms as self-taxation of citizens and initiative budgeting and also analyzes the use of “budgets for citizens” as a possible tool of information impact on the interests of residents. The author characterizes subjective factors, affecting the content of interests and analyzes certain aspects of the behavior finance concept as the basis for the investigation of these interests. The analysis made it possible to identify the contradictions in the interests of the territorial authorities, population and business structures and outline the ways for their harmonization.

Today in Russia pension, tax, credit and other financial initiatives of the government significantly change economic and social norms for the population. The latter forms contradictions and risks of the current financial policy of the government, which constrain the solution of the problem of «achieving growth rates above those of the world» and reduce the level of political stability in the society. This requires a thorough study of the directions of financial policy, within which has formed a number of significant obstacles  to the solution of social, economic, innovative and other strategic objectives of the development of our country and its regions. On the basis of statistical analysis, the article substantiates why modern budget concept is not focused on the creation of the necessary conditions for the development of “breakthrough” growth rates of Russian economy. The paper shows what defects and contradictions of the current system of budget regulation hinder the implementation of the tasks of ensuring economic and national security of the country. The authors prove the basic directions of reforming the current budget concept of the RF Government.

The results of Russia’s economic activity over the years of its reform, the indicators of economic development of the regions allow us to conclude that the liberal market approach to economic management has completely discredited itself. The current state of the Russian economy requires a revision of the previously established model of its reforming. A new model should be primarily focused on the new industrialization, the priority revival of the high-technological sector of the economy as the main goal of industrial policy. The author proves that the revival of the industrial potential of the country should be provided on the basis of scientific-based Strategy of innovative development and system-dialectical approach to economic management, which is based on the strengthening of economic and social functions of the state, on the usage of planning and economic mechanisms of state regulation.

The Chinese initiative «One Belt, One Road» has a growing influence on the development of the global economy. As it progresses, it carries both new opportunities, risks, and challenges for concrete regions and countries. On this background, «One Belt, One Road» begins to encounter ambiguous perception and often with the opposition. This article is devoted to the analysis of this tangle of problems. The authors identify the main economic prerequisites for its occurrence; define economic and political goals, which can be achieved by China within its implementation, and also describe the main geographical directions of the initiative’s development. It’s noted that China began to experience competitive pressure from the USA and the EU, mainly in the form of countering Chinese economic expansion, as well as the anti-Chinese media campaign. Critical arguments for the Chinese initiative, as well as arguments in its favor, are presented and explored in the paper. Basing on the analysis of “pros” and “cons”, the authors come to the conclusion that the nature of the «One belt, One Road» is likely to be changed towards greater consideration of the interests of the hosting countries.

 One of the important elements in the procurement management system in the city of Chelyabinsk is the practice of centralized procurement staff training, which is based on the Municipal Budgetary Institution (MBI) “Chelyabinsk Training and Consulting Center for the Professional Development of Procurement Personnel”. The Institution provides training services in accordance with the requirements of the Federal law, dated 05.04.2013, No.44-FZ “On the contractual system for the procurement of goods, works and services for the state and municipal needs” and the Federal law, dated 18.07.2011, No. 223-FZ “On the procurement of goods, works and services by the different types of legal entities”. The article considers the successful experience of procurement centralization in Chelyabinsk, aimed at ensuring quality compliance the requirements of Russian procurement legislation, growing the efficiency of procurement processes and reducing the risks of ineffective funds’ spending.

The main specific feature of single-industry towns is the dependence of their socio-economic development on the financial situation of the city-forming enterprise (group of enterprises). This enterprise is responsible not only for the filling of the budget, but also for the social situation in the single-industry town. So unemployment in single-industry towns has negative consequences not only for these settlements (reduction of the tax base and the quality of life of the citizens, subsidizes’ depending budgets, the growth of crimes, etc.), but also poses a threat to social and political stability throughout the country. The article considers the current problems of single-industry towns’ the development in the Russian Federation, as well as the specific features of single-industry towns in the Far East; reflects the assessment of the measures undertaken and inserts the proposals, concerning the necessary of support to single-industry towns in general and in the Far East, in particular.

The article is devoted to the analysis of events, related to the present time modernization of federal relations. Of interest is the fact that in Russia today the processes of both centralization and decentralization of federal relations are developing in parallel. In legal sense, these trends have been embodied in new initiatives in the organization of state power. Trends in the decentralization of federal relations become increasingly clear. There are normative acts, regulating the distribution of authorities between the bodies of state power of the Russian Federation and the bodies of state power of the subjects of the Russian Federation on the basis of the principle of subsidiarity. Meanwhile, the control of the federal center does not weaken. However, still there are problems, related to more detailed regulation of this process, for example, via inserting amendments to article 73 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation.