The global economy continues to grow, albeit mainly due to large-scale support measures from governments and regulators. Moreover, the latter are not sure about the prospects for such development, since the economies do not demonstrate the potential for independent growth. As a result, in order to stimulate it, regulators are forced to expand the range of their tools, mechanisms, approaches, otherwise the risks to the stability of the global financial and economic system increase. All this is happening against the background of negative rates, which have become virtually ubiquitous and persist for a long time. New growth records are being set in the stock markets, and their gap from the real economy is growing. A number of sectors are beginning to dominate, forming distortions and bubbles in the markets. In such conditions, the importance of digital money, ecosystems, etc. increases. Moreover, the faster and more efficiently regulators can integrate into these formats, the more successful business, the population, and the economy as a whole will be.

The paper draws attention to a new wave of public and academic debate on the future of globalization and on rationality of countries’ further participation in distributed production, i.e., their involvement in global value chains (GVCs) and value-added trade. Raised during the COVID-19 pandemic shock, this debate is the reaction of countries to the global diffusion of downfalls through transborder supplies. We analyze vulnerabilities of GVCs to sudden shocks, demonstrate the role of these risks in escalating the 2020 global recession and in shaping its unique features, as well as scrutinize the emerging post-pandemic strategies of leading MNEs for enhancing the GVC resilience. We argue that despite the collapse of the just-in-time supply system and the crucial dependency of many domestic industries on imports from China, the pandemic shock could neither undermine foundations of distributed production nor lead to mass reshoring. On the contrary, both analyzed practice and surveyed econometric literature confirm that benefits of countries’ participation in GVCs outweigh risks of their falling under potential rippling disruptions. Moreover, MNEs’ resilience strategies, which we classified into three interrelated lines of action (restructuring of GVCs’ supplier networks, production optimization, and GVCs’ digital transformation), give globalization a new impetus. We conclude with describing the changing features of distributed production under the ongoing GVCs’ restructuring and outline a number of promising export opportunities that objectively open up in the 2020s for developing economies, including Russia. In the course of our study, we examine key properties of resilient systems (robustness, flexibility, redundancy), some new notions (disruption risks, ripple effect, etc.), and new management approaches relevant for all types of economies and businesses under increased uncertainty.

This paper identifies and examines several success criteria for the structural transformation of exports. Some detailed facts for the leading countries in structural transformation are presented, and the paper is the first in social sciences literature to calculate the Fréchet distances between the structural transformation trajectories according to various criteria. The paper introduces the concept of structural transformation trajectory that is defined as the path in the two coordinates — per capita income and one of the success criteria for the structural transformation of exports. Based on the brief review of the literature, four criteria for the empirical research are selected: (i) an increase in the ratio of exports of capital to consumer products, (ii) an enhancement of the export share of high-tech products, (iii) a decrease in export concentration, and (iv) an expansion of export complexity. In most cases, countries leading structural transformation succeed due to a limited number of specific factors, such as foreign direct investment in a limited number of sectors, participation in the assembly of telecom products, automobiles or similar consumer products, and re-export of products from other countries. However, high per capita income growth rates are typically observed in countries with high coherence of the success criteria for the structural transformation of exports, that is, in countries that made progress on a whole range of criteria.

During crises, discussions about the sources of employment intensify, including that of entrepreneurship. The growth of employment in the entrepreneurial sector is one of the national goals, which should be achieved up until 2030. However, the selection and verification of support measures requires the determination of the underlying growth factors. The paper proposes an econometric model, where the dependent variable is the growth of employment in the SME sector in the Russian regions over the previous decade. According to the results of the estimations, the creation of new companies is significant: one new enterprise creates on average 10 new jobs in small and medium-sized businesses, while a technological startup creates 60 new jobs next year. Employment growth in the last decade is higher in regions with growing incomes of the population, with good access to banking capital and large markets, and with low criminal risks. Increasing Internet accessibility contributes to the growth of the business sector; whereas nationalization of the economy is an obstacle. Employment is growing in SMEs in agricultural regions and decreasing in the centers of production. The efforts of the authorities should aim at lowering the barriers to market entry for the new companies, increasing access to capital, markets and the Internet, and stimulating the digitalization of the economy.

The paper examines the opportunities and obstacles to increasing the employment of women with children in Russia. There is a tight correlation between Russia’s lagging behind in the share of working women with children under the age of three and a lack of supply of preschool and childcare institutions. Using quantitative analysis of the Russian regions, we show that the expansion of the supply of preschool education services is associated with an increase in the employment of women, and the cost of introducing additional places in preschool organizations is recouped by additional tax revenues from working women with children in two years. Our cross-country analysis shows that the transition from traditional gender and social roles to more equal ones, the reduction of gender inequality, the encouragement of fathers to take parental leave, and the increased availability of part-time or flexible-schedule employment for women with children could further facilitate the employment of women with children. Our estimates show that an increase of preschool enrollment in Russia to the level of European countries would materialize a sizable economic growth potential: an increase in income per capita would be 3.5%.

In the presence of anti-epidemic restrictions, telework has become widespread around the world. This trend has provoked numerous debates on how efficient and convenient work from home is compared to that performed on special premises. However, work from home is not the only non-standard form of work activity. This study explores different types of workplace — locations and premises where workers perform their duties. Empirical analysis exploits microdata from “The time use survey” conducted by the Russian Statistical Agency in 2019. The survey identifies six types of work: on standard premises (offices or shop-floors), telework, homebased work, work performed in special facility (like kiosks, pavilions, gas filling stations, garages, etc.), in open air facilities (like construction sites or agricultural fields), or transportation/delivery services. These types of workplace differ in terms of employment and working conditions, work safety and commuting time, potentially contributing to social stratification. Thus, heterogeneity in “workplaces” contributes to social stratification, affects distribution of economic benefits and health risks and can be an additional measure of labor market inequality.

This paper investigates the association between changes in the labor market status and subjective well-being of Russians during the COVID-19 pandemic. The materials of the first stage of the international project “Values in crisis” form the empirical dataset. Regression analysis shows that individuals who lost their jobs or closed their business during the initial period of the pandemic are somewhat less satisfied with their lives than those who did not. Being reduced to part-time work and working from home are not directly related to subjective well-being. At the same time, the strength of the association between subjective well-being and possible changes of the labor market status depends on such factors as the presence of children, as well as the value of self-enhancement (according to Schwartz) and conscientiousness (one of the Big Five personality traits). The job or business loss is associated with a decrease in subjective well-being among respondents without children; this association is not observed among those with children. In addition, the negative relationship between life satisfaction and job or business loss is stronger among individuals with high level of self-enhancement and weaker among those with high level of conscientiousness. Among respondents who had to switch to part-time or remote work, having children reduces the level of subjective well-being; among those without such experience, it is positively associated with subjective well-being.