The main task of regional policy of any state is the «binding» of the economic space of the country, in modern Russia is solved inefficiently. Perhaps, the main reason here in that the experts and practical workers, forming this policy, think only with macro or microeconomic categories. As a result, this policy is focused mainly on the realization of branch interests. Such practice isn’t acceptable in cases when there is a need of spatial development of the economy, the possibilities of which are always limited by the permanent fight of interests between certain market participants for regional resources. The domestic regional research goes through difficult times. It’s certificated with the liquidation of the Ministry of regional development of Russia; the actual elimination of the Council for the study of productive forces (SOPS); the disappearance of «federalism» and «federal relations» concepts from the political lexicon, etc. However, the potential of regional studies isn’t limited only within Moscow. In the subjects of Federation sti l l rema i n and successf u l ly develop thei r ow n scientif ic centers. T hei r h istor ical mission, perhaps, is more significant, than it seems at first glance. This conclusion is ba s ed on the ana lysi s of the ex per ience of the I n stit ute of s oci a l and econom ic development of territories of the Russian Academy of sciences, which shows obvious progress in scientific potential formation not only of Vologda region, but also of the Russian Academy of sciences in general.

The adoption of the law on strategic planning should be considered as a logical and necessary step towards the formation of such a system of public administration, which would be able to bring Russian economy out of the protracted stagnation towards the trend of sustainable development. However, in order to achieve this important goal, the law’s propositions must be supported with a system of economic and institutional prerequisites. Among these prerequisites the article proves t he decentra l i zation of publ ic ma na gement; lon g-ter m bud get plan n i ng and forecasting; recovery of the system of sub-national (regional and local) finance; coordination of the activities of the main institutes and instruments of federal regional development policy. These prerequisites for effective implementation of the provisions of the federal law on strategic planning also concern its alignment with a number of other important legislative acts in the sphere of economic regulation, namely with the laws on industrial policy, on state-private partnership, on the development of small and medium-sized entrepreneurship, etc.

New realities of the budget policy dictate the necessity to change the landmarks in the implementation of the government anti-crisis program. The main factors of the economic situation in Russia in the face of the deteriorating of geopolitical crisis in late 2015 - early 2016 are sharp decline in the revenues of the federal and regional budgets and the aggravation of the social situation in the society. In these circumstances, the analysis of the situation with the possible return to the unified social tax in the Russian Federation in 2017 seems a very urgent task for evaluating the prospects of socio-economic development of the country as a whole and of Russian regions. The article discusses current position of the Government in relation to the need and the possibility of replacing the system of sur plus payments to social funds with the unified social tax. The article analyzes development trends in Russian social system of taxation and social security over past decades. The author compares historical and contemporary experience of social tax and social security systems. The author proves the existence of a consistent trend of applying fiscal methods to ensure the implementation of social programs in times of severe financial constraints, comparable with the current period.

A review of scientific works, dedicated to the assessment of population health stat u s and its use for hea lthca re ma nagement m ay lead to the conclusion that many problems have been resolved, at least at the theoretical and methodological levels. However, in this sphere there are still a number of issues, which complicate obtaining the adequate picture of this phenomenon - both at the country level as well as at the level of separate regions. These issues hamper the opportunity to increase the efficiency of healthcare strategies, aimed at strengthening population health and life expectancy prolongation. The article contains the description of methods for adjusting age-specific rates and procedures for regional ranking and clusterization. The paper presents the results of rankings and groups of Russian regions with similar levels of age-standardized death and incidence rates for 1994-2013. As a result of this analysis the author revealed differences between regions with low and high health losses. This contradiction can be explained with the fact that people rarely seek hospital medical attention due to insufficient development of healthcare in these regions.

The author presents the results of the analysis of the current situation and the related problems with the local self-government in 2014-2015. The ongoing municipal reform principally manifests the trend of organizational changes. It doesn’t ensure the solution of such vital problems as stimulation and support of various forms of citizens’ participation in local self-government, attaining parity in relations of local governments with the regional and federal governments, reasonable and non-uniform distribution of powers between levels of government, reservation new sources of revenues for local budgets. The article contains a number of proposals addressing these issues.

Lasting for more than 25 years, the process of establishing and reformation of local government is characterized by continuous transformations, which take place according to the scheme «reform-counter-reform». The phenomenon of progressive-return fluctuations is not a specific nature only of the modern period. The author finds its roots in the era of the «semstvo» and the urban reforms in the XIX^th c ent u r y. Na m ely w it h i n t h i s p er io d s t a r e d a nd s ti l l c ont i nue i n t h e or y and in practice the rivalry between the socio-economic and state concepts of local government. Modern action of «reform-counter-reform» mechanism is illustrated basing on the example of transformations of local self-government territorial organization.

The article discusses theoretical and applied aspects of the budgetary federalism formation in Russia during past two decades. The author comes to the conclusion that for the development of the budgetary federalism, which provides a real social impact of the budgetary policy, it’s necessary to redefine the under s t a ndi n g of i ndependence of the subjects of the Rus sian Federation. T he effectiveness of budget expenditures is derived from the actually realized public policy of the balanced regional development as the key principle of the budgetary feder al ism. T he per spective of refor m i n g the acti n g budgetar y federalism model depends on the elaboration of financial instruments, ensuring the realization of the compromise of interests of the state and the society, which is based on the provision of conditions for the self-development of regions.

Tax policy of the Russian Federation in the sphere of income taxation since the crisis year of 2009 was aimed at the reduction the tax burden on capital income in order to maintain the activity of economic entities. The tax burden reduction took place both in federal and regional component. The procedure of the tax payment by consolidated groups of taxpayers leads to the redistribution of tax revenues between the budgets of the subjects of federation and sets their more pronounced dependence on world markets. The structure of the tax benefits within profit tax varies considerably for the different types of subjects of Federation. Only in five regions the regional component of tax policy dominates. For all other subjects of the Russian Federation federal tax benefits form the main volume of losses for regional budgets. The abolition of regional tax benefits will not solve the problem with forming budgets revenue of subjects of the Russian Federation, it is necessary to find other sources.

The problem of high interest rates limits the opportunities for sustainable economic growth in Russia and in its subjects. However, its solution cannot be reached via one-time reduction of the level of key interest rate of the Bank of Russia to the indicators, typical for the main developed countries. The article examines the interest rate policy of modern Russia from the point of view of achieving the balance of interests оf financial and non-financial sectors of the economy. The paper offers the principles of the interest rates’ policy, aimed at achieving the appropriate balance via the convergence of the key interest rate level and weighted average return rate of the enterprises’ assets.

Strategic development of Russia should be reduced to a number of important principles: setting goals, determining the application area, functional completeness of the required diversity and perception, resistance to changes, provision with the resources and others. Elements of the strategic management system can be represented via the following components: 1) the system of economic management (planning, organization, control, coordination, motivations at all levels); 2) socio-economic development strategy; 3) prognosis of economic development; 4) development programs; 5) instruments of influence on economic entities (measures of the current policy - a tactic). Thus, tactic determines the attainability of strategic development guidelines. If the macro impacts at the system level have great power, they are able to discount the movement towards strategic priorities. The paper presents model «2x2» - «investment-savings», «financial and non-financial» sector. It follows from the model that the reason for the difficulties of strategic nature consists in the overgrowth of the financial sector, in inefficient institutions, regulating and defining its mode of operation, which requires a change in the monetary and financial policies in the country. Strategic planning must end with the elaboration of development strategy and assume unified principles and approaches at various levels of regional and federal government. The perspective of this study forms the problem of the distribution of the monetary and fiscal policy effect (within the framework of fiscal federalism) in the regional context. The model proposed can become the i n itial scheme, i n wh ich the pa rameter of i n s titutional bia s of the f in a ncia l sector must be defined for different regions in order to identify methods to rectify this regional divergence.

The paper considers political and administrative approaches, regulatory and financial instruments, applied by five sub-arctic NATO member states in the sphere of the scientific researches’ development of the Arctic. On the basis of program documents the paper shows the mechanisms of realization of geopolitical interests and priorities, reflected in the Arctic Strategies of Iceland, Denmark, Canada, Norway and USA in terms of their program documents, national programs and structures of research activity. The article reveals synergic effect of international cooperation of these countries, which makes it possible to integrate national experience, human, financial, technical and information resources in the scientific sphere. The author comes to the conclusion about the concentration of Russian scientific potential and its target financial provision, which is the necessary condition for the effective realization of the Development strategy of the Russian Arctic Zone and for strengthening of Russian Federation geopolitical positions in the macroregion.

Current Far East Federal District (FEFD) contribution to the GDP of Russia is relatively small. However, Far Eastern macro-region has sufficient potential for the sustainable development under the conditions of the constraining factors’ el i m i n a t ion . Ava i l a ble n at u r a l r e s o u r ce s ’ p o tent i a l , f avou r a ble e c on o m ic and geographic location determines the significance of these territories’ master-i ng. A mon g t he key chal lenges of socio-econom ic development of these ter r itor ies are the following: inefficient structure of the fuel and energy balance, low rate and the actual lack of manufacturing industries, low density of the transport network and remoteness from the Centre of Russia, demographic problems. Prospects of region’s development depend on a number of preconditions, the major of which are the modernization of the transport and logistics system of the region and the success of its integration into the expanding economic space of the Asia-Pacific Region.

International experience proves the importance of small entrepreneurship in the development of the competitive environment, in the implementation of innovations, in improving the quality of life, in the formation of the middle class, ensuring employment and maintaining social stability. In order to develop and implement effective programs of small business support and stimulating in Russia, it is necessary to get analytical information, taking in account branch and regional specificities of small business. The article presents the results of the analysis of current state and trends of small business development in Russia according to the size groups of enterprises. The paper contains the study of the structural changes in the branch and regional distribution of small enterprises. Using multivariate statistical methods, the author defined regional clusters with different levels of small entrepreneurship development.