The article discusses the evolution of the theory of long-run economic growth and the contribution of the 2018 Nobel prize winners Paul Romer and William Nordhaus. First, it describes the exogenous growth theory of the 1950s and 1960s, such as the Solow model, the Ramsey model, and the overlapping generations model, in which growth is determined by exogenously given technological progress. Then the paper turns to the contribution of the Nobel laureates, who were the first ones to develop the theory of endogenous growth. In the case of the Romer model, technological progress is the result of intentional actions of firms, which introduce new products and thereby raise the overall productivity. In case of the Nordhaus model, production causes environmental damage, which then stifles further growth. In both cases production causes externalities, which have either positive or negative effect on growth. Then, the article considers further developments in the theory of economic growth, such as the Schumpeterian theory , unified growth theory, and institutional theory. The paper concludes with some practical implications about policies needed to reignite the growth of the Russian economy.

The article analyzes the situation in the world and in Russia 10 years after the global financial crisis. It is shown that with the observed growth of the world economy, global risks, on the contrary, have not diminished, but increased, which creates the threat of new failures. The measures that can be taken by Russian regulators to neutralize external risks and stimulate the economic development of the country are considered.

The article analyzes the relationship between structural changes and economic growth in the world economy and Russia. The authors note the emergence of a growth model in the world economy based on the complementarity of economic policies aimed, on the one hand, at the development of fundamental foundations of economic growth (institutions, human capital, infrastructure, macroeconomic stabilization), and, on the other hand, at initiating growth through structural reforms (even under stable foundations). Analyzing the trends of structural changes in the world economy, the authors consider new forms of structural policy, in particular, the ones oriented at the issue of identification of sectors — potential drivers of economic growth using the portfolio approach. A preliminary version of the model of Russian economy based on the multi-sector variety of the Thirlwall’s law is presented in the paper.

The article assesses the impact of various factors on the growth rate of international trade. Many experts interpreted the cross-border flows of goods decline against the backdrop of a growing global economy as an alarming sign that indicates a slowdown in the processes of globalization. To determine the reasons for the dynamics of international trade, the decompositions of its growth rate were carried out and allowed to single out the effect of the dollar exchange rate, the commodities prices and global value chains on the change in the volume of trade. As a result, it was discovered that the most part of the dynamics of international trade is due to fluctuations in the exchange rate of the dollar and prices for basic commodity groups. The negative contribution of trade within global value chains in 2014 was also revealed. During the investigated period (2000—2014), such a picture was observed only in the crisis periods, which may indicate the beginning of structural changes in the world trade.

The article considers how the spatial concentration of the banking sector in Russia, associated with the formation of an increasingly centralized and state-owned banking system, affects lending in the regions of the country. Foreign research in the field of financial geography indicates that spatial centralization of the banking system may hinder sufficient lending to regions remote from financial centers, as well as small and medium-sized businesses, especially in times of crisis. We analyze these conclusions in relation to Russia in 2010—2017. Centralization of the Russian banking system is largely predetermined by the centralization of the economy as a whole and contributes to the redistribution of credit resources from the capital to the regions of the country, but adequate lending to SMEs is a problem in this situation.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of public investment programs on the socio-economic development of territories. As a case, the federal target programs for the development of regions and investment programs of the financial development institution — Vnesheconombank, designed to solve the problems of regional development are considered. The impact of the public interventions were evaluated by the “difference in differences” method using Bayesian modeling. The results of the evaluation suggest the positive impact of federal target programs on the total factor productivity of regions and on innovation; and that regional investment programs of Vnesheconombank are improving the export activity. All of the investments considered are likely to have contributed to the reduction of unemployment, but their implementation has been accompanied by an increase in social inequality.

The article studies the example of informal taxes in Russia — a phenomenon when citizens provide voluntary payments for financing local public goods. This so-called “self-taxation” has attracted attention in 2017 upon the adoption of the changes to the local government law, which simplified the procedure for local referendum. The article outlines institutional reasons for the emergence of this mechanism and its risks for Russia and other countries. The empirical analysis exploits the data by the Russian Statistical Agency and the Russian Treasury. Our results reveal a positive relationship between the coefficient of regional cofinancing of municipal projects and the growth in the share of voluntary payments in the non-tax revenues of local budgets. Therefore, self-taxation by citizens may be viewed as a signalling tool for enhancing the quality of local public goods.

The author analyses the Spatial Development Strategy (developed in 2018, but not adopted by the Government at time when the article was in print), the possibility of bringing it into life, and its adequacy in dealing with real problems of Russian regions. Special attention is paid to four aspects of the Spatial Development Strategy: development of the agglomerations, geostrategic territories macroregions effective economic specialization. The author concludes, that in comparison with other already adopted strategical documents the Spatial Development Strategy has some conceptual advantages, but it can’t solve all the problems and it will be difficult to put it into action in the current economic situation.

The article deals with some aspects of the Spatial Development Strategy 2018: the role and place of the Strategy among other strategic documents, the challenges addressed by the Strategy, the accomplished transition to the work with “space” instead of “administrative regions”, and the still debatable questions related to the problems of regional development and the role of agglomerations in it.