The article is devoted to the problems of relationship between public expenditures and economic growth and methodical and practical problems of estimating expenditures efficiency. The authors note that productive expenditures (expenditures on human capital, social and economic infrastructure, research and development) have strong influence on economic growth. The comparative study of the effectiveness and efficiency of public expenditures was conducted, including productive expenditures (education and healthcare), for Russia and the sample of countries close to Russia by their economic development level. The indicators of the effectiveness and efficiency, econometric models, DEA method, and effectiveness and efficiency rankings based on them are used as measuring instruments in the study. According to the approach applied in the study, the rankings show relatively poor results for Russia in macroeconomic function performance of the public sector, in comparison to the other countries of the sample, but it is worth noting that the aggregated estimates are influenced by the selection of time period. Russia shows high results in education public expenditures efficiency and relatively poor results in healthcare public expenditures efficiency. Also, the productive expenditures level is low in Russia compared to the other countries close to Russia by their economic development level and OECD countries. This can limit economic growth in the mid-term and long-term prospects.

The article explores the impact of government spending on the key components of economic activity in Russia, such as private consumption and investment. The author pays serious attention to the theoretical justifications of the possible impact of fiscal policy on economic growth and its components, as well as reviews the empirical results obtained in this area. In the empirical part of the article, government expenditures are represented by the “GDP by expenditure” items — government consumption and government investment. The results, for Russian data covering the period of 1995—2017, indicate a short-term positive impact of government spending on private consumption and a negative impact on private investment. It also proves important to take into consideration the changes in macroeconomic conditions that occurred approximately in the middle of the observed period.

The article discusses the current state and development prospects of transferdependent regions of Russia (recipient regions). Transfer-dependent regions are defined as regions with the share of intergovernmental transfers in their total revenues exceeding 25%. The paper presents a new classification of recipient regions, where regions are divided according to the degree of their transfer dependence, as well as the growth rate of tax revenues. Based on the analysis of intergovernmental transfers, the dynamics of tax revenues and regional government debt, as well as the structure of the regional economy, the paper proposes various scenarios for changing the tax system and discusses the potential results of their implementation for the budgets of the recipient regions.

The article examines the impact of openness and transparency of the budgets of countries and other indicators in the field of public administration on the situation of countries in terms of the Human Development Index (HDI). By using the econometric analysis, it is shown that there is a significant positive effect of the budgetary openness on the HDI.

The second part of the article is devoted to the theory of leading socioeconomic development. It is shown how in Western Europe, as a result of the interaction of culture, institutions, technological progress and the level of welfare, specific forms and combinations of the three main mechanisms of coordination — competition, power and cooperation — emerged at each stage of evolution. I emphasize the importance of ideology and the phenomenon of technical progress in the formation of institutions of economic and political competition that contributed to the emergence of the welfare state. These changes and economic growth created the conditions for further transformation of civil culture: increasing levels of trust, tolerance, altruism and cosmopolitanism, expanding the planned horizon. The decrease in the level of coercion built into the mechanisms of power and competition is demonstrated as well as the expansion of the role of collaboration. A hypothesis is advanced that the speed of this process depends on geographical factors. The idea of welfare world is discussed.

The article considers influence of entrepreneurial experience on the wageemployment wages. Empirical analysis is based on the RLMS-HSE panel data, 2000—2013, with using fixed effects models on the overall sample, five-year- and flexible window. Results show that transition from entrepreneurship to wageemployment leads to penalty of wages. Wage growth rate of former entrepreneurs’ lag behind the wage growth rate of workers without entrepreneurial experience. The size of wage-penalty decreases if the profession remains the same in transition from entrepreneurship to wage-employment.

In this paper we present the results of the assessment of the impact of internal migration and human capital of migrants on the convergence of regions on wages. Using Rosstat data for 2002—2016 for 77 Russian Regions we have estimated dynamic GMM model with spatial effects. The results have showed that internal migration increases the speed of convergence regions on wages. The impact of migration on the wage convergence of regions depends on the level of education of migrants.

The article raises the question of the role of non-market feedback signals in modern market economies. A. O. Hirschman’s theory of “Voice—Exit” has become the theoretical basis of the optimal combination of market and nonmarket signals was. Both books under consideration are practical applications to this theory. The monograph by Le Grand demonstrates the use of the institution of complaints in the public sector when providing public services to firms and organizations of different forms of ownership. The book by Barlow and Møller explains the role of complaints in successful market strategies in a competitive environment. The Russian economy has always used a non-market feedback signal in the form of an institution of complaints to coordinate the flows of tribute and distribution. The analysis of the studies by Le Grand and Barlow—Møller is needed to understand the evolution of administrative complaints into the civil form of an equal dialogue with the authorities, through which the emerging problems are more quickly eliminated, and the open access order in Russia is being formed.