The paper analyzes changes in job opportunities of older workers in Russia in the period 2005—2017. The study uses the data from the Russian Labor Force Survey conducted by Rosstat. Changes in the occupational and industrial composition of elderly workers follow the trends pursued by other age groups: employment shifts from low- to high-skilled occupations, from physical to intellectual labor, and from material production to the service sector. We find a stronger polarization among older workers as their occupational structure is biased in favor of, on the one hand, the most and, on the other hand, the least qualified types of jobs. Employment of the elderly has fallen sharply in agriculture and manufacturing with a significant increase in trade, education, and health. Although the employment structure of older workers is generally more “traditionalist”, recent decades have witnessed its transformation in “progressive” directions, similarly to other age groups. These findings suggest that the legislated increase in the state retirement age is not likely to give rise to sizeable unemployment among the elderly. Most of them will be able to work in the occupations and industries previously dominated by young and prime-age workers.

The article focuses on the wage formation of workers in the pre-retirement and retirement age in Russia. For this, the authors analyze age-wage profile and wage differentiation within and between age groups. The study exploits the Sample Survey of Household Incomes and Participation in Social Programs for 2016 which has a large sample and covers all groups of employed in the economy . It measures wages payed during the year 2015, thus allowing estimates for annual as well as hourly wages. Multiple previous studies across developed countries come to the consensus that wages tend to grow over age until late in life, though with decreasing pace. However, this pattern does not show up in Russian data. Earnings peak early in working life and then decline monotonically. By their pre-retirement age, Russian workers find themselves on the declining wage trend. Though this deviation from stylized facts has already been noted in the literature, we explore it using the new and more comprehensive dataset. In addition, our analysis deals with annual earnings as well as hourly wage rates, and it explores trends in hours worked over age. The findings suggest that wage differentiation tends to be higher among older age workers reflecting stronger selection into employment with age. Given the forecast of changes in the age composition of employment by 2025—2030 and assuming the stability of the age-wage profile, we can expect non-trivial reallocation of the aggregate wage fund to the benefit of the middle age group of workers while the old age group is likely be unaffected.

The occupational mobility of migrants is one of the key characteristics of their economic integration. The article analyzes the occupational mobility of immigrants from their countries of origin to Russia and its main determinants. Mobility of migrants from the last job at home to the first job in Russia and from the first job to the current job in Russia is considered. The empirical basis is the data of a representative survey of migrants (more than 8500 citizens of the CIS countries and Georgia. The evidence shows that immigrant occupational mobility is characterized by a combination of large-scale intense initial downgrading when migrants enter the Russian labor market and a limited occupational progress during their stay in Russia. Higher education and Russian proficiency reduce the risks of downward mobility during the transition from the last job in the home country to the first job in Russia, but their influence on the economic integration of migrants is very limited. A significant factor is the structure of the regional market: the larger the proportion of people employed in labor-intensive service industries, the higher the likelihood of immigrant occupational downgrading. The evidence for Russia is more in line with the proposal of segmented assimilation theory, which suggests that immigrants experience has limited or blocked occupational mobility.

For decades economic literature considered intellect to be the main determinant of individual results in the labor market. While there has been significant research on the traditional human capital as the main determinant of labour market results, there is huge heterogeneity across individual wages on the labour market which remains unexplained. Noncognitive characteristics represent a relatively stable way of thinking, feeling and behaving in certain situations, which appears to provide an explanation for these differences. This study presents scarce evidence of the link between noncognitive skills and economic outcomes conducted on extensive Russian data. Using RLMS—HSE data for 2016—2017, returns to the Big Five taxonomy of personality traits are estimated with an extended Mincer-type model. The results are in line with previous research on the topic and indicate the existence of a strong link between noncognitive skills, employment and wages for all socio-demographic and professional groups. However, there is considerable heterogeneity in the economic returns across these groups. Besides, the measured effect of personality traits is comparable to the effect from the traditional human capital components.

This paper examines the evolution of academic and applied approaches to analyze the problem of economic growth since the mid-XX century. For quite an extended period of time, these views were corresponding to universalist economic policies taking no adequate account of particularities and limitations that a certain catching-up economy embodied. New approaches analyzing the problems of economic growth, on the contrary, individualize growth diagnostics, structural transformation and the organization of reforms processes for the emerging economies. We argue that individualist approaches might be potentially more effective than the universalist ones for solving the problem of slow economic growth.

This paper shows the diversity and significance of relations of duality among different economic systems. The composition of the principles underlying the system economic theory used for the analysis of duality in the economy is investigated. The concept of the economic system is clarified and the equivalence of three basic concepts of the economic system is shown: a) as a space-time volume (“black box”); b) as a complex of elements and connections among them; c) as a tetrad, including object, project, process and environment components. In a new way, the concept of the tetrad is revealed. The actual interpretation of the interrelationships of its components, based on the mechanisms of intersystem circulation of spatial and temporal resources and the transmission of abilities from one economic system to another, is proposed. On the basis of the obtained results, the most essential aspects of duality in the theory of economic systems are considered. It is shown that the interaction of internal content and the nearest external environment of economic systems lies in the nature of the relations of duality. A new approach to modeling the structure and to functioning of the economic system, based on the description of its activities in the form of two interconnected tetrads (the first tetrad reflects the intrasystem production cycle and the second one — the external realization-reproduction cycle) is put forward. It is shown that the concept of duality in a system economy creates prerequisites for adapting the functioning of local economic systems (objects, projects, etc.) in a market, administrative and functional environments and, as a result, harmonizing the economy as a whole.

The concept of absorptive capacity as a framework for analysis allows solving some challenges of knowledge transfer. However, the assumption about the homogeneity of production factors does not enable to understand the sources of firms’ competitive advantage, various models of their innovation behavior, and the constraints of innovation policy. The study aims to clarify the typology of absorptive capacity, to analyze the structure of the absorption of foreign techno logical knowledge, to formulate some measures on growing of absorptive capacity of the Russian enterprises. In the paper, the three types of absorptive capacity are associated with the acquisition of embodied technologies; patents, licenses, and know-how; and adoption of R&D results.