In the coming years it is necessary to ensure the breakthrough development of the country in economy, technology and social sphere, to launch new large projects for the modernization of industry and infrastructure. The regional dimension of these changes is one of the most complicated. In order to develop the country harmoniously, it is necessary to create timely a multi-level system of strategic planning. The development of the digital economy at the regional level and increasing the financial stability of regional and local budgets are also among the necessary conditions. This cannot be achieved without ensuring economic growth of the subjects of the Federation by increasing their own economic potential. One of the main tools of regional policy should become the standard of well-being, designed to provide all citizens, regardless of their place of residence, with the not declining standard of living, the necessary volume and quality of infrastructure, public and municipal services.

In the article the problem on scientific support of the state strategic decisions in the field of the country’s spatial development is discussed. As a scientific base of strategic planning spatial development the author proposed to use the results of scientific research received in the course of fulfilling a long-term series of academic scientific research programs on fundamental problems of modern Russia’s spatial development. The point is in the unprecedented for both domestic and, apparently, the world science scientific mega-project signifying a new interdisciplinary type of research on a wide range of prior for modern Russian reality theoretical and applied issues that form the supporting framework of the newest actual spatial problems. This large-scale, multidisciplinary, compound organized project was conceived, prepared and launched in 2009 and is still being realized. In the article a description is given of both theoretical and methodological approach, methodological tools and forms of organizing scientific research within the framework of the mentioned project and its results.

Nowadays strategic planning is considered as the most important prerequisite for the modernization of the Russian economy. However, many regions demonstrate formal approach to the process of developing their strategies. One of the reasons for this situation is the lack of financial (including investment) resources both at the municipal and regional levels. The most important tool for solving the problem of limited resources is the use of public-private and municipal-private partnership mechanisms. The analysis shows that in those territories, where the use of these mechanisms is conducted non-formal, the institutionalization of strategic planning is realized more effective. The article is based on the studies of the strategies of a number of subjects of the Russian Federation and municipal units, on the analysis of the sector structure of the public-private partnership as well as of the municipal-private partnership. The study also focuses on the degree of the dependence of the mechanisms of both public-private partnership and municipal-private partnership and their detailing in the strategies of socio-economic development of regions and municipalities.

The modern budget concept creates obvious prerequisites for the formation of risks in the implementation of the tasks of social and economic development of Russia in the medium term. Experience of functioning of three-year budgets has designated serious questions and claims to the developed budgetary concept. Does the modern Russian economy need a three- year budget? How is the budget and forecast of socio-economic development combined? What is the reliability of the forecast for the two-year and three-year periods? Is there any real control over the implementation of the triennial budgets? Unfortunately, the practice of recent years shows a catastrophic mismatch of forecast and actual data in the implementation of three-year budgets, the formation of real threats to the interests of business, deceleration in solving social problems. The article suggests certain approaches to the improvement of the modern budget concept. Possibilities of reforming of Institute of budgeting on the basis of implementation of provisions of the law on the state strategic planning are considered.

Despite the complex measures, taken in recent years and aimed at solving the problem of the advanced development of the Far East, including the measures for the attraction of public investments, the creation of financial, investment and other instruments for the development of the macroregion; regional investment projects, territories of advanced socio-economic development, special economic zones and others, the regions of the Far Eastern Federal district still have a significant lag behind the level of development of other regions of Russia in most socio-economic indicators, and their contribution to the economy of the Russian Federation in comparison with their resource potential remains insignificant. In this regard, the model budget, which is calculated by averaging the costs with implementation to them various coefficients may not give an accurate assessment of sufficient amount of financial resources, necessary for the full execution of the powers, set for the state power bodies of subjects of the Russian Federation and local self-government bodies of subjects of the Russian Federation within the Far Eastern Federal district. The calculation of the model budget should be made more accurately with the separate consideration of the costs’ rising factors in relation to each locality and the number of citizens living in them. The article considers the results of the implementation of the model budget to the balancing the budgets of the Far East regions. Among the main problems, hindering the development of the Far East, in particular, in the article are noted long-term large-scale outflow of population and the associated shortage of labour resources, low level of infrastructure and social services’ development, high costs of living and doing business in the macroregion, the remoteness of domestic markets, etc.

The research of companies’ territorial strategies allows to specify the entrepreneurs logic of territories choice for the investment by eliminating from the analysis the offshore capital, to reveal the differences in regional strategies of companies in various branches of the economy, to identify the company preferences in territories for different activities, to assess the attractiveness for foreign investors not only regions, but also different types of settlements (all of these tasks cannot be solved on the basis of statistical data). The paper analyzes the location of regional divisions of different types (production, logistics, sales, research, management) of 50 largest foreign companies operating in Russia (Forbes rating). The author confirms the compliance of this location with the existing theoretical ideas about the companies’ territorial strategies, including the importance of key economic centers, hierarchical and wave diffusion, neighborhood effect. The paper shows the differences in investments’ attracting in different types of cities (including the role of million-plus cities in the location of companies distribution centers and research units, small towns in attracting industrial enterprises, the second-third cities of regions in the development of the retail trade), in the wideness of the geography of companies activities in different industries (including the presence of minimum territorial barriers in the food industry and mono-brand retail trade, especially cars), the importance of proximity to Moscow. The article highlights Russian Federation subjects with the maximum degree of allocation of foreign companies.

In the conditions of a complex, difficultly predictable external environment and the continuing instability of domestic socio-economic processes, studies, devoted to the development of methodological bases for assessing the economic security of the regions of the Russian Federation, acquire particular urgency. Evaluation of regional development in the context of economic security is designed to form the basis for making adequate management decisions, aimed at minimizing challenges and threats to the sustainable functioning of the regional socio-economic system. The paper presents methodological approach to the evaluation of the development of the old industrial region, on the territory of which are concentrated highly specialized industries, associated with the outgoing technological modes. This approach is based on the consideration of institutional, legal, economic, social, organizational, managerial and environmental factors, which ensure sustainable, economically secure development of the region. The author offers conceptual model for the assessing the nature of the development of the old industrial region in the context of ensuring its economic security. The paper contains the system of local, group and integral indicators for assessing the sustainability of the socio-economic development of the territory and presents the approbation of methodological approach in relation to the Tula region, which is one of the typical old industrial regions of the center of Russia.

The second part of the article presents the analysis of the world trend of poverty expansion, the beginning of which coincided with the introduction into the global macroeconomics of the neoliberal-monetarist ideology as a platform for a new policy. The article contains the arguments of well-known theoreticians regarding the expectations of the conflict- free development of capitalist society. But this hasn’t happened, as it’s evidenced by the concentration of super incomes under the control of extremely narrow social strata with the tendency of narrowing the middle classes and the deterioration of the socio-economic situation of workers. The author comes to the conclusion that the US actually “privatized” the whole world financial system in its own interests. And the Federal Reserve System acts as the manager of all the central banks of the world (except China). The paper shows the extraordinary aggressiveness of American presidents, without any hesitations using armed force in the name of “national interests” and ignoring other countries, as well as international treaties and agreements. This is especially true for President Donald Trump, who has declared trade war even to close allies, not to mention relations with Russia. The attention in the paper is paid to the economic policy of Russia and its international relations, showing their contradictions; the author analyzes President Vladimir Putin’s goals and the attitude towards them on the part of the subjects of the management system. The author makes some proposals, aimed at the real implementation of the goals, declared by the President and concerning the country’s development.

In federalism-related studies the characteristic of the federation as «unity in diversity» or «diversity in unity» is widely used. It is fixed that «unity» in its limit takes the form of centralized federalism, directed to unitarism. And «diversity» in its extreme boils down to the unrelated set of federal units, aspiring to separatism. Both extremes are unacceptable. It’s necessary to indicate the path between them. However, the problem of quantitative measurement of indicators of «unity and diversity» of federal systems, as well as of their optimal combination, remains poorly investigated. The paper defines quantitative measures, provides an assessment of the limiting parameters of the structural heterogeneity of federal states and sets quantitative criterion for the optimization of their structural construction.

Today one of the actively used methods of assessing the situation in the subjects of the Russian Federation is their rating by levels of socio-economic development. This is widely spread opinion that such rating allows not only to determine the contribution of regional economies to the development of the Russian Federation, but also to assess the effectiveness of the regional executive power. Accepting certain correctness of this assumption, it should be noted that the place in the regional rankings of a particular region of the Federation does not always determine the readiness of its economy to self-development. This place, for example, can be determined with the assistance, rendered to the region by the federal Centre, since formally it demonstrates the growth of the regional budget revenues. As concerns the evaluation of the effectiveness of the regional management decisions, the situation here is even more complicated: the change of investment period with the period of technological innovations’ development, gives as the “output” the visibility of a fall in economic activity. The study, conducted by the authors of the article, proves that in some cases the place in the ranking does not correspond to the real state of affairs. The economy of the region, which occupies last places in the ranking, may have obvious growth potential and the economy of the subject of the Federation, which is a member of the group of leaders, may be characterized by stagnation or even decline.

Despite the fact that over the past 15 years, it has been possible to reduce the mortality among young people, reduce the level of youth unemployment, increase the interest of young people in maintaining a healthy lifestyle, and the fact that Russia is one of the world leaders in terms of the number of young specialists with higher education, there are a number of factors that negatively affect the socio-economic status of youth and its role in society. First of all, these factors include the decline in the number of young people and its share in the total population. This trend has a systemic negative impact on the socio-economic development of the country, expressed in the natural population loss, in the reduction of labor resources, in the growth of the pension load. As a negative factor, it is also necessary to note a decrease in the population’s income over the last four years, especially against the backdrop of the continuing high material and social stratification. A consequence of the above may be increased aggression in the youth environment, national and religious intolerance, the growth of social tension. No less dangerous is the other extreme — the socio- political and economic apathy of this part of society. Therefore, special attention is paid to the analysis of the economic activity of youth in this article. It presents the structure of the number of young people in terms of their participation in labor and study. The structure of the labor force at the age of 15—29 years is studied in detail (in general, and by cohorts 15—19, 20—24, 21—29 years). Along with the traditional indicators of employment and unemployment, new statistical indicators characterizing the underutilization of the workforce are considered, including the potential labor force; the number of people who in principle want to work, but do not seek for a job at all and are not ready to start it. The indicator «The proportion of young people who do not study or work at the age of 15—24, in the total number of young people of this age» was also developed, and its structure was studied. On the results of statistical surveys of the population, it is shown that the problem of inefficient youth employment lies in the quality of education that it receives in school, in colleges and universities, in a low level of professional orientation.

Due to the fact that the legislation in the sphere of procurement provides the rules for their implementation, but, at the same time, does not offer mechanisms for the implementation of procurement, regional and municipal bodies, which are authorized in the sphere of procurement, have to borrow the experience of the colleagues from other regions of the Russian Federation, where such practices have already been successfully applied. The most effective of them are collected by the Guild of Domestic Purchasers and Specialists in Procurement and Sales into the Register of the best practices in the implementation of legislation in the sphere of procurement. Volgograd region is among the best regions thanks to its project on centralization of purchases of the state and municipal customers of the region. The article describes the stages of this project as well as presents the evaluation of its effectiveness.

Recently, the attention to the business climate condition and its impact on the processes of socio-economic development of the territory has grown significantly. However, the problem of quantitative measurements of separate institutions of the society is extremely poorly studied in the scientific community. The article provides the assessment of the largest Russian cities’ domestic markets openness level as one of the components of their business climate. The assessment has been carried out basing on the analysis of the largest companies’ authorized capital structure. The paper has summarized the main factors, forming entry barriers to the Russian cities’ market for external companies.