Introducing new technologies to the financial sector is a crucial component of creating the digital economy. This trend is typical for the most of countries and as well it can be observed in Russia. The banks, which succeeded in reshaping their activities on the basis of digital technologies, not only boost their positions on the domestic financial services’ market, but also ensure themselves competitive positions within global market. Current forecasts indicate that the share of digital services both on the global and Russian markets will be constantly increasing. The growing number of companies, offering services based on new technologies, and their solidified positions on the domestic and foreign market demand pertinent amendments to the regulatory framework, governing the functioning and the development of the financial sector. The specifics of digital technologies, which are used in the financial sphere, define the peculiarities of their legal regulation. It means the transnational nature of digital technologies and the fact that organizations, whose activities are based on digital technologies, typically dispose of significant experience of operating outside the regulation of the state authorities. Russia currently has a “Strategy for the Development of an Information Society in the Russian Federation for 2017—2030” as well as a “Digital Economy of the Russian Federation” program. The article analyzes two draft federal laws — “On Digita Financial Assets” and “On Alternative Means of Attracting Investment (Crowdfunding)”. The adoption of these laws will form the basis for the regulating of digital technologies in the financial sector and will create an alternative system for the attracting investments for the development of small and medium-sized business using digital technologies.

The formation of economic policy, aimed at the socio-economic development and the increase of the level and quality of life of the population requires active involvement of the subjects of Federation in this process. Economic recovery in 2017 resulted in the growth of revenues of consolidated budgets of the subjects of Federation. Property tax revenues, especially property taxes paid by individuals, increased most significantly compared with the last year’s figures. The increase of the tax burden occurred together with the real incomes’ decrease. The increase of budget expenditures followed the revenue growth, but the structure of expenditure changed. Health expenditures were reduced. Some increase in the expenditures of the regional funds of the state medical insurance did not compensate the fall down of this kind of budget expenditures. The health expenditures’ drop in some regions was critical. The funding of education practically hasn’t increased. At the same time the expenditures for the national economy sufficiently raised mainly via the growth of the road funds’ expenditures. Subjects of Federation managed to decrease in 2017 expenditures for the public and municipal debt service, however, the overall deficit of their budgets has increased.

While economic growth slows down, the requirements to the implementation of economic policy are rising. In particular, this concerns budget and tax policy, since budget indicators are sensitive to the fluctuations of business activity. The article considers the results of the budget and tax policy in 2017, which is characterized with a certain revival of business activity and, as a result, an improvement in the situation with both the federal budget and the consolidated budgets of the subjects of the Federation. Nevertheless, as it’s shown in the research, the budget and tax policy, pursued in recent years, doesn’t contribute to economic growth. In the work the analysis is carried out from the point of view of the policy of progressive fiscal consolidation. It’s shown that the accumulation of funds in sovereign funds under conditions ofRussiadoesn’t become an instrument of such an approach, but serves only to finance operational deficits, which are formed not at the expense of increasing investment expenditures of the budget, but at the expense of increasing current expenditures. The article also analyzes the conditions, under which the borrowings grow and, consequently, grow the costs of servicing the public debt. Despite the low level of public debt relative to GDP, a high level of interest rates together with low rates of economic growth facilitate the accelerated escalating of the debt and create restrictions for pursuing a stimulating policy in the future.

The analysis of the structure of local budgets’ revenues, performed on the materials ofNovosibirskoblast, demonstrated a low level of their independence because of the lack of stable revenue base of these budgets. For the most of the municipalities of the region, more than a half of the revenues were attracted from transfers. The results of calculating the characteristics of the heterogeneity of budgetary indicators before and after the transfer of funds from the regional budget indicate that the heterogeneity in budget revenues after transferring funds from the regional budget to municipalities is declining. Calculation of coefficients of rank correlation demonstrates the existence of a random character of gratuitous transfers from the regional budget, which does not meet the objectives of equalization. However, assessing the dependence of gratuitous per capita transfers to local budgets of the average per capita tax and non-tax budget revenues using regression analysis methods revealed the existence of a statistically significant negative relationship between the parameters under consideration for Novosibirsk oblast, i.e. that the budgetary policy in the region is aimed at equalizing the average per capita budget revenues of municipalities. The assessment of the effectiveness of the incentives to increase tax revenues at the local level allows to conclude that the incentives used are working towards the preservation and development of the tax potential of the municipalities of Novosibirsk oblast, and also that in general the subfederal budget policy is focused at optimizing the formation and execution of the revenue base of the local level.

The latest practice of state promoting of territorial development is based on using the instruments of acupuncture economic reviving of the territories. Its impulses, according to the concept of innovations diffusion, should spread widely beyond the bounds of the created “centers of growth”. Among such instruments a special place belongs to special legal regimes of conducting business and other economic activity on separate territories. The article analyzes the practice of using special legal regimes for the attraction of private investments and new technologies to the economy of the country and its regions. The paper reveals distinctive features of such instruments as special economic zones, zones of territorial development, territories of advanced development and estimates their productiveness and efficiency. The author characterizes key problems and recommends measures, aimed at improving the mechanisms of territorial development on the base of special legal regimes. It is shown that excessive enthusiasm for special regimes, which had become “the mainstream” of state regional policy, caused overestimated expectations, meanwhile practical results turned out to be very far from them. The growing number of various “zonal” formations with preferential regimes, created in different parts of the country, leads to the growing competition among them for state resources, for private investments and personnel. There is a necessity of coordination and congruousness in the adoption appropriate state solutions in the scale of the whole country.

The success of developing and mastering the model of sustainable development largely depends on the ability to assess objectively the expected results for its implementation at the level of the subjects of theRussian Federation. The actuality of this issue stimulates the scientific research of the problems of ensuring the sustainable development of the economy of the regions, raises the interest of researchers to the issues of modernization of their socioeconomic systems, orientation towards self-development in the integrated economic space of the country. The article analyzes the dynamics of particular indicators and identifies the factors, which positively and negatively affect the sustainability of social and economic development. The paper proves the necessity to take into account the indicators, characterizing the budgetary system of the region since the problem of the creditworthiness the Russian regions’ budgets is relevant, and the deficit of the regional budget and the growth of the state debt negatively affect stability. The article provides the assessment of regional differentiation in terms of indicators of sustainable development and illustrates the boundaries of changes in particular indicators within the period of 2007—2016.

The attraction of population to theFar Eastand Far Eastern lands’ development in modern conditions besides economic meaning has as well geopolitical task. With the aim of attracting population to the given region, the Government of theRussian Federationhas elaborated the program “Far East Hectare”. The article provides proposals, aimed at stimulating the attraction of the population and lands’ development. Attention should be paid to the expansion allocating lands to migrants, taking into account the specialization of farms, starting from10 hectares. In the sphere of credit relations, it may be effective to reduce loans’ rate to 5%, and for mortgage loans within 3—4%. Of significant meaning will be the strengthening of material incentives to attracting population via the preservation of district coefficients and northern allowances. Given that most of the benefits are planned to be implemented at the expense of regional budgets, the article proves the necessity to ensure the infrastructure for new settlements at the expense of the federal budget, otherwise the problem of national importance – settlement and development of theFar Eastlands – can be stretched for a long time. The study of the pre-revolutionary experience of settling the Asian part ofRussiaprovides many examples of a positive solution to the problem of ensuring the inflow of population to theFar East.

Currently, both BlockChain technology itself and crypto-currencies, associated with this technology, are growing in popularity. In the Internet, the services related to BlockChain are gaining more and more popularity, including crypto-exchanges, ICO-sites. With the growth of investments in crypto assets, the attention of hackers to these technologies also grows; the number of specialized attacks directed namely at new BlockChain services is increasing. The growing attention to new technologies can be seen in all countries. This tendency hasn’t passed byRussian Federation— both at the all-national level and at the level of the subjects of the Federation. However, active integration of BlockChain technologies into the practice of financial and other regulation is not currently accompanied by the due attention of the experts in the sphere of cybersecurity. The analysis of the actual situation shows that the provision of economic and political security of the country demands watchful attention to this question. The article provides the examples of possible attacks on crypto-currency services as well as the options for the protection against such attacks.

The article discusses the role of state prices’ regulation as one of the important directions of the strategy of strengthening the socio-economic security ofRussia, understood as the unity and interdependence of the economic and social components of national security. The paper shows that the main challenges and threats to social and economic security are the following: in the economy – very low rates of economic growth, preservation of deformed fuel and raw materials’ structure of industry and exports, reduction of investment activity of state and business; in the social sphere that is a high level of poverty, unemployment, “housing hunger”, the unavailability of high-quality health and education services for most of the population and the uneven incomes of the Russian population. The article reveals the important role in aggravation of these threats of the insufficiently effective state prices’ regulation in 1992—2016, which led to the advancing growth of the prices and tariffs for gas, electric power, housing and communal services. It is proposed to stabilize regulated prices for energy resources and housing services as well as to include in the arsenal of strategic planning the establishment of indicative prices’ parities, which will contribute to the gradual elimination of the most acute threats to the socio-economic security ofRussia.

The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) is a relatively new organization and doesn’t play yet a decisive role in the economies of the participating countries. Under present economic conditions, the formation of the Eurasian Economic Union involves a number of difficulties, related to the interactions within the legal, financial, customs and other areas. The most important role in the process of Eurasian integration belongs to financial relations, which ensure the functioning of all economic subjects. Therefore the article primarily considers financial and other aspects of EAEU integration. The author suggests a possible evolutionary way of forming the financial infrastructure of EAEU. The analysis is based on the risks’ assessment of organizational, structural and methodological adoptions from the European Union financial structure and from the recommendations for the formation and interaction of EAEU financial institutions.

Territorial fragmentation of common legal space ofRussiacan serve as a systemic characteristic of social-political and social-economic heterogeneity of our country’s space not less than repeatedly investigated territorial differentiation of the regions’ and municipalities’ development. The proposed concept reflects legitimate peculiarities of separate territories’ functioning in a form of legal status asymmetries and special legal regimes. The paper defines the main types of such fragmentation and their prevalence over the country’s territory. The authors provide the detailed example of legal space fragmentation in the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation and prove recommendations, aimed at developing and using a new special legal regime — “supporting zones of development” of the Arctic territories.

InRussiais acting a notification procedure for holding public events. Such a procedure is necessary to maintain public order and security. However, the legislation leaves significant gaps for the implementation of the notification procedure as a permission one. Administrative and criminal liability for break the procedure for public assemblies is widely applied even if the meetings are peaceful and don’t entail violations of the rights and freedoms of other persons. The authorities still can recommend another place and time for the organizing the meeting. In fact, the organizer must obtain permission from the authorities concerning place and time of the meeting. International experience shows that in practice, there should be no arbitrary reasons for refusing to hold a public event and disproportionate responsibility of participants of public events. It’s also necessary to provide opportunities for citizens to conduct spontaneous meetings. The notification period for public events in Europe can be several hours (2 hours —Estonia, 6 hours —Finland) or 2—5 days (Moldova,Bulgaria). In these countries it is possible to hold spontaneous meetings. In our country this possibility is established at the level of the subjects of theRussian Federation; the meeting can be held without notifying the authorities in specially designated places. It makes possible to hold spontaneous meetings with a small number of participants.

An analysis of the intermediate results of the import substitution policy in the food industry shows that the food embargo policy appeared to be the most important factor, which contributed to the achievement of the intended goals. However, besides some positive results, the imposing of food embargo also had negative consequences, including the growth of consumer prices. Today, one can state that the dependence on imports for many commodity groups has decreased noticeably, but for a number of products it still remains high. The pace of import substitution is constrained with a number of problems, including low investment attractiveness of the food industry, low competitiveness of the goods produced and with staff deficit in the regions. The solution of these problems is important not only for the development of the food industry inRussiaand in the regions, but also for the economic security provision of the Russian state.

Dynamic development of technologies, modernization of the Russian economy put forward the tasks of developing and improving the quality of personnel training on the basis of clarifying the requirements of employers to the qualification of employees. With this purpose a set of measures, aimed at improving the system of professional qualifications, is being implemented. A fundamental element of this improvement is the system of modern qualification characteristics — professional standards. At the state level, a regulatory framework has been established for the development and application of professional standards in the spheres of labour and education; consistent methodical and consulting support for users is provided. All-Russian Research Institute of Labour of the Ministry of Labour and social protection ofRussiaconducted the first studies of the experience of the application of professional standards; identified the problem and the directions of the development of this area of scientific research and practical activities. The methodology and the main results of this work are described in the given article.

Borrowing secured by movable property is one of the urgent means of financing person’s need for money resources. Therefore this sphere of activity is extremely sensitive to changes in disposable incomes of the population. The study focuses at the dynamics of the number of pawnshops in different subjects of theRussian Federationas well as on the main indicators of their activities compared to real incomes and nominal wages of the population in various parts of the country. The revealed tendencies of increasing the borrowing in pawnshops by individuals accompanied by the outstripping growth of citizens’ debt burden on consumer loans and credits in comparison with the growth of their wages is another signal of fast growth in household debts’ load in the Russian regions, which indicates to the necessity of taking urgent government measures, addressed to solve this problem.

Further development of the contract system inRussiarequires increasing attention to the improvement of the methodology for evaluating the effectiveness of the customer’s procurement activity, including its regional peculiarities. Such approach is proposed in the given article, which analyzes the organization of public procurement management system inSevastopol. The author considers the process of formation and practical application of the regional mechanism of the evaluating the effectiveness of the customers’ procurement activity. The paper proves the actuality of the presented method’s application for the evaluating of the efficiency of purchasing activity of customers inSevastopol.