A sociological approach towards the generational cohort analysis is developed. A special emphasis is made upon the youngest adult generation of millennials coming out of their adolescence in the 2000s. A broad range of social indicators is used for empirical exploration of intra-generational differences between urban and rural millennials. Data were collected from the annual Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS-HSE) in 2003—2016. Numerous significant differences have been revealed with regard to the educational level, family planning, use of modern gadgets and digital technologies, commitment to healthy lifestyles, and some values. Some practices are more widely spread among rural millennials, whereas other practices are more characteristic of urban millennials. Most of revealed differences are explained by the lower level of material well-being of rural millennials and lower quality of rural infrastructure.

The article presents the analysis of the dynamics of housing affordability indicators in Russia over the past 10 years and in largest urban agglomerations during 2010—2016. It highlights the main factors that influenced the growth in housing affordability in this period. This paper compares Russian indicators with similar foreign indicators, taking into account the methodological differences. The authors show that there was a trend to increase housing affordability in Russia for the past period through home purchase using mortgage loans. In contrast to Russia, in the majority of developed countries more attention was paid to improving the quality of the urban environment in the same period, which led to a certain decrease in housing affordability.

This study estimates the relationship between school quality and housing prices in the regional centre of Russia using the case of Novosibirsk. We obtained a valuation of public response on school quality using “discontinuity design” approach. Results show that urban housing the case prices are affected by the quality of the assigned school and magnitude of this impact corresponds with the results of various researches in this area.

The article explores the category of self-organization from the standpoint of a synergistic theoretical paradigm. An explanation of self-organization as a form of the origin, existence and evolution of systems is given. The problems of selforganization of socio-economic systems are specially considered. The features of individual levels of self-organization of the system — macro-, meso-, and microscopic — are revealed. The spatial, temporal and functional structures of self-organization that are characteristic of a synergistic analysis of socio-economic systems are studied, the features of self-organization within these structures are shown. On the basis of the theoretical and methodological foundations of selforganization, some objective requirements are formulated for the general concept of systemic socio-economic reform in Russia.

The paper examines the place of Schumpeterian idea of creative destruction in endogenous growth models, as well as its relevance for national competitive strategies under the ‘new normal’ situation. The difference between Schumpeterian growth models and the model elaborated by P. Romer is revealed. The paper analyzes modern interpretation of creative destruction as a process displacing low-performing firms by high-performing ones, as well as old products and technologies by more innovative ones through a market competition. It is shown that this process accelerates the dynamics of firms and the turnover of resources in an economy, thus leading to reallocation of investments and knowledge to the most productive agents. The paper highlights the importance of sustaining a dynamic balance between measures stimulating a firm-level innovation activity and measures supporting a barrier-free environment for an effective resource allocation in the economy. We consider cases of several developed and developing countries, which demonstrate negative implications of underutilized advantages of creative destruction and the risks of selective supporting policies towards exclusively high-growing firms. We conclude that without restarting the process of creative destruction in the Russian economy the national efforts to enhance competitiveness and growth may turn unproductive.

The paper provides a critical assessment of Pan-i nstitutionalism — an approach which tries to explain the course of the world economic history by changes in formal economic and formal political institutions. This approach is mono-causal since for it formal institutions do not simply matter: in fact they are all that matter. The most complete and elaborated versions of Pan-institutionalism were presented i n two famous books — “Violence and social order” by North, Wallis and Wei ngast and “Why nations fail” by Acemoglu and Robinson. Their ideas were taken by the Russian academic community as the last word in the modern economic and political sciences. The paper demonstrates methodological narrowness, conceptual inconsistency and historical inadequacy of Pan-institutionalism. In particular, it fails to provide a coherent explanation of the turning point of the world economic history — the Industrial revolution in England in the mid of XVIII century, i.e. a transition from Malthusian to Schumpeterian economic growth.

The article analyzes topical issues of the state regulation of subsurface use of the Arctic and continental shelf of Russia. The role and value of development of oil and gas reserves of the Arctic as the most important strategic region of development of national economy are proved. The need of tough upholding of the Russian Arctic interests for the UN and other international organizations is revealed. The anti-sanctions policy of import substitution in relation to the foreign oil and gas equipment and technologies of extraction of hydrocarbon raw materials in extreme conditions, to construction of the drilling fleet, etc. from positions of national energy sustainability is grounded. The importance of studying the best practices of the subarctic states is noted.