Studies of the parameters of the state budget at all times belonged to one of the most interesting questions, to which addressed not only economists, but also all citizens. This is quite understandable since these parameters determine the development direction of the country and its regions. The article presents the authors’ view on the nature of fiscal consolidation as a key concept of the Russian fiscal policy at the federal level in the medium term perspective. On the example of Russian Federation federal budget project for 2017-2019 years the paper gives critical assessment of the key approaches and tools of fiscal consolidation as a condition of ensuring balanced federal budget, its impact on the economy and the budget system of Russia.

Development of the banking sector of the economy of Russia within the last 15 years was extremely uneven. According to the Bank of Russia data for 2015-2016, it is possible to notice considerable decrease (for 6,4%) of the a mou nt s of the credits is sued i n Janu a r y, 2016 i n compa r ison w ith Janu a r y, 2015. It is possible to indicate a number of factors which slow down the development of consumer crediting and namely - market saturation, credits’ non-return, high key interest rate, etc. The article considers the modern situation in the market of consumer crediting, especially in relation to the problem of availability of credit facilities. The paper offers the measures towards overcoming the crisis (deformation) phenomena. At the macroeconomic level it’s necessary to create the conditions for interest rate reduction and for the perfection of the whole system of credits’ providing, to develop new forms of crediting by banks; at the microlevel it is necessary to implement the program of recapitalization of large domestic banks at the expense of numerous financial resources, accumulated by the government of Russia, first of all, at the expense of National welfare fund.

Now the tota l nu mber of feder a l executive bod ies i n the Ru s sia n Feder ation is comparable with the number of central governments of foreign countries. At the same ti me, ef f iciency of cur rent expen ses on publ ic adm i n istration i s fa r from optimum and the efficiency of public administration in Russia is traditionally estimated significantly lower than in OECD countries. In this regard is actual the task on search of reserves for optimization and increase of the efficiency of budget expenses on public administration. For this purpose it is necessary to develop and to approve the unified techniques of assessment of personnel requ i rement s, of t he optim i zation of number a nd m ater ial s ti mu lation i n feder al executive bodies taking into account the implementation of program and target methods of public administration. The aforesaid determines the need of carrying out a complex research of indicators of number and labour compensation of federal government employees with the purpose of elaborating specific decisions, concerning the determination of optimum structure of the state power and the establishment of money compensation of government employees.

This paper analyzes the problem of objective estimation of the labour market and the training of graduates, which meet the expectations of employers. The article provides a description of the automated information - analytical system of monitoring and analysis of employment needs of the labour market for the graduates of higher education institutions (according to the nomenclature of specialties of higher educational institutions). The system is designed for regional authorities, universities, companies, and recruitment agencies. The development of this system will make it possible to coordinate setting of new higher educational institutions or undertake the conversion of the available ones in accordance with the current economic challenges, while the leaders of universities will be able to adjust their curricula in accordance with the changes in the labour market, the companies - to implement effectively the recruitment and training, and the students - to choose their own learning way.

The paper presents state entrepreneurship as an important factor of economic growth and stabilization of Russian economy. Basing on the analysis of foreign and Russian scientific literature and legal documents the authors analyse three functions of the state in the economic activity: as regulator, as a motivator and as entrepreneur; and show that it is not reasonable to restrict the role of the state only with its economic and non-economic regulation methods. The paper proves the need for a definition of public entrepreneurship including various forms of state participation in economic activity on the basis of managing state-owned companies, forming market supply of public capital and different forms of public-private entrepreneurship and public procurement system.

The center of economic activity is gradually moving eastbound and this process makes it reasonable for the Russian Far East regions’ cooperation with APR countries. Economic valuation indicates that current extent of Russia’s involvement in international integration process is insufficient and the reasonable urge to enter the Asian markets is mainly inspired by the existing natural resources base and geographical closeness to Asian-Pacific countries. The paper provides scenario forecasts of the macro-region development, which demonstrate that the strategic goals of economic development can be achieved only in case of the realization of «Outstripping development» scenario, which suggests 15-35% growth of county’s average indicators by 2025. The perspectives of the Russian Far Ea st development can be real i zed on ly v ia su f f icient i nvestments i n infrastructure, via facilitating market demand in the region, increasing regional economy capitalization, growing personal incomes and the comfort of living for the population.

The most important part of the state government evolution is the development of interaction means between citizens and business with public administration. At the present stage this interaction is supported by dissemination of communication technologies. Open data become the testament to the practical implementation of the principles of transparency, clarity, civil society involvement, public integrity and the accountability of authorities. Despite the generally positive trends, in Russia the lack of cross-agency unity remains critical as well as the constant process of infrastructure reengineering. Despite substantial changes in international ratings, the federal government continues to evaluate the development of informational society according to the level of regional informatization. The forming of the road map aimed at transfer to a new step of e-government development and the assessment of the current maturity level of e-government level in Russia should be based on such the global trends as the digitalization of public administration, transition to smart government and the formation of smart society.

It is difficult to overestimate the role of credit in the modern economy. The maximum efficiency of its use involves the formation of the model, which ensures the harmonization of interests of creditors and borrowers. Despite the development of the credit market and the availability of a wide range of credit instruments, as well as quite developed legislative framework, regulating the relationship of lender and borrower, there is an urgent need to assess the accessibility of credit resources for the economy of regions. On the one hand, general requirements and uniform standards (norms) have been introduced. On the other hand, still remain completely different capabilities and needs of each individual region. Effective solution to the problems and inconsistencies, identified in this paper, will make it possible to expand the range of approaches, aimed to stimulate credit activity in the regions and also to differentiate the requirements to local borrowers, taking into account specific features of functioning of the economy of a region.

The modern Russian economy is a small open economy, subject to considerable impact of the external shocks. The regional budgets as well as federal budget suffer of the consequences of these shocks. Russian tax system passed through three main stages of its formation and within each there was inefficient from the point of view of economic theory combination of the degree of tax policy activity and the exchange rate regulation. In modern conditions the role of the federal budget in the budget system of the country is extremely great. This leads to the fact that the risks of external shocks are translated to the budget system as a whole, which is crucial dependent on transfers from the federal budget. The paper identifies a group of subjects of the Russian Federation, whose budgets are largely dependent on the corporate income tax revenue and for which the decline of the budget revenue of this source creates a real threat. Improving the stability of the budget system in relation to external shocks implies as well the growing resistance of regional budgets to these shocks.

Fiscal and budget policy in the conditions of cyclic GDP fluctuations, caused by external shocks and as well affected by these shocks, can in turn affect the domestic economy. The nature of fiscal and budget policy according to theoretical developments is determined by the ratio of output gap and the structural balance of the budget. The article presents a comparative analysis of these indicators in the developed countries and Russia. On the basis of cluster analysis the author describes fiscal and budget policy, pursued by the developed countries within the periods before and after the crises of 1997 and 2007-2008. The paper shows that according to the formal criterion these countries mainly carried out stimulating fiscal policy before the crisis of 2007-2008 and after it. Countries, which faced the problem of excessive public debt, regularly allowed large structural budget deficit, despite the periods of «overheating» of the economy. The paper also concludes about primarily passive nature of fiscal policy in Russia from 1997 to the present time in comparison with some developed countries.

How have new independent countries been developing after the collapse of the USSR? How did their political and business elite create their own states? What are their achievements and failures? What have people of these countries gained and what have they lost? These most difficult questions require fundamental research by the teams of scientists and specialists of all these countries. Though all these questions are being studied by the academic community of Russia and other friendly countries, and especially actively by western analysts, however, they demand for more in-depth study, especially in connection with the evident crisis of modern capitalism. The article considers general political and economic results of new independent states which formed after the downfall of the Soviet Union in December 1991, 25 years ago. Considerable attention is devoted to the prospects of the Euro-Asian Economic Union.

The investment flows which stimulated the development of regional economies had a great impact on the transformation of national economic system of Russia in the second half of XIX - at the beginning of XX centuries. The paper illustrates the effect of the active government policies, which resulted in changes in the internal economic relations and in the deepening of the uneven economic development of the territories. The author shows how the resources’ fragmentation in the scale of the Russian Empire led to the weakening of investment flows and determined the effect of «the scale of the territories» in the Far East and in Central Asia. It also led to the emergence of «focal» industrialization (Ural, Siberia). It’s noted that the intensity of investment flows, directed to regions, depended not only on the lack of capital in the conditions of sharp growth of demand, but also on the reduction of the economic interest of the central government to the development of separate territories. This situation led to the lessening of capital inflows from other regions of Russia and to the increasing the role of foreign and national (local) capital in border and marginal regions. The paper proves that one of the results of the regional features of the investment flows’ direction was the fact that not all incorporated t er r itor ie s h ave be en a c t u a l ly «emb edd ed » i nto the e c onom ic sy stem of Ru s s ia.

Today almost all subjects of the Russian federation have developed and implemented various strategic planning documents. Despite this fact, it’s too early to speak about the formation of the integral system of strategic planning at the sub-national level. Most regions by the moment of the adoption of the Federal law N 172-FZ «On strategic planning in the Russian Federation» were in a very difficult economic situation and have more to do with their current problems, rather than with strategizing. The article analyzes fiscal and budget situation in the subjects of the Russian Federation as a factor, restraining effective implementation of strategic planning, and proves the directions of this problem solution.

Public attention in the analyzed sphere concentrates on the opposition to corruption and on the increasing the number of defrauded investors. An adequate response to the expectations of society hasn’t been received yet. General liberalization of the policy in the sphere of legal regulation improvement for urba n development, the abol ition of l icensi n g of con s tr uction activities, design and engineering, simplification of licensing procedures for construction and the permission for objects’ input in operation, the abolition of the municipal urban control is focused on the formation of a qualitatively new environment of urban development. However, shortcomings in the legal regulation on the background of unfavorable economic situation do not make possible to realize these plans. Institute of SRO has showed its complete failure. The liberalization of the urban sphere didn’t contribute to the solution of the problems of deceived shareholders. This article argues that the legislation should contain a provision, stating that incomplete objects cannot be recognized as property, and the right of ownership until the moment of their putting into operation should belong to the owner of the construction materials. Comprehensively, in order to exclude corruption component should be solved the question of legal regulation and transparency of integrated construction.