Detailed estimates of the hydrocarbon rent for 1999-2009 are presented. Size, sources, and usage patterns of the hidden rent (which is not included into hydrocarbons prices, but provides the source of energy subsidies) are built for the first time. This part of the natural rent is estimated to vary from 8 to 17% of GDP. The largest losses in hydrocarbon rent were related, first, with subsidizing domestic users of natural gas, and second, with diminishing value added in the refinery sector. The obsolete refinery was implicitly supported with relatively low taxation regime. This support reflects overall soft budget constraint stance pursued by the government that constitutes an important impediment to the modernization of Russian economy.

Shortening of available volumes of a natural resource can become an engine for the development of new technologies, which could help using it more effectively. The article considers the case of Israel - the state that encounters sweet water deficit. Accessible average volume of this resource is in some sense random and hard to predict. Ordinary pricing mechanisms are difficult to implement due to political and social considerations. A range of measures has made private firms use an already existing intellectual resource to develop R&D aiming to make water use more effective. This can be viewed as a process of efficient substituting a deficit natural resource with a non-deficit intellectual one.

The article discusses the concept of "success" in relation to innovative business and its performance. The quantity of innovative projects that can consistently overcome the stages of the innovation process to achieve the desired result is defined. The author presents the results of empirical research of successful and unsuccessful projects of leading Russian innovative companies in various industries, identifies key factors of successful development of new industrial products.

The author indicates shortcomings of the modern economics textbooks and surveys the contribution to economics made by Ludwig von Mises, the main representative of the Austrian school in the second half of the 20th century, and the impact of his magnum opus "Human Action" on the development of economic theory. The author summarizes the methodology of teaching economics (on the basis of "Human Action") he used in the Complutense University of Madrid.

The problem of institutions emergence is studied in the paper from the methodological individualism perspective. Special attention is paid to spontaneous emergence of institutions, the model "expectation (forecast) - break of expectation - frustration - aggression (punishment)" is suggested. The situations of institutions emergence via voluntary agreement and via compulsory adoption are also analyzed. It is shown that in all the cases institutions emergence can be explained basing on the methodological individualism perspective.

The quantitative characteristics of the Russian model of institutional change and its dynamics from 1994 up to 2009 are considered in the paper. The model of institutional change is represented by a group of social actors with the right of legislative initiative (the president, the government, deputies of the Federal Assembly, regional legislative bodies, courts) and the parameters of transaction costs (the average term of enacting federal laws initiated by different actors). Research was based on the specially created database LAWSTREAM.RU.

Performance of Russian homeowners associations (HOAs) could serve as a litmus test for the Russian societys capacity for self-organization. Efficiency of Russian HOAs is gauged in the paper by using the stochastic frontier technique. The variation of obtained performance indexes reflects observed HOA successes and failures. HOA are shown to be a superior alternative to municipal management of common property in residential housing only if there is a sufficient stock of a special kind of social capital - technical civic competence - in the community of tenants. Lack of social capital and insufficient competition between management companies prevent Russian HOAs from fully realizing their potential.