The year 2022 was characterized by a number of significant processes and events that made it possible to reveal the stability of the Russian and world economies. Thirty years ago Russia started moving to the market that marked the beginning of radical changes and transformations of the Russian economy and laid the basis for long-term trends that we are still observing. The liberalization of prices and the subsequent introduction of a single exchange rate regime, large-scale entry into the global financial system, and the strengthening of market principles of interaction of economic agents determined the contours of further development of the Russian economy. This was followed by a real test of strength — through a period of local and global crises, and in the sanctions of 2022, this “testing” has reached its apogee. The pandemic shock was replaced by a large-scale geopolitical tension due to the events in Ukraine. Russian assets were frozen, the existing system of world economic relations was massively deformed, and the Russian economy is forced to rebuild the mechanisms and foundations of its domestic and international development. At the same time, RF has the potential for forming new points of support, and it should be used more actively.

The freezing of Russia’s international reserve assets, the world’s seventh largest, despite not being the first case of its kind, will have systemic impact on the way countries around the world treat their reserves. Financial sanctions have undermined confidence in traditional reserve currencies. A systemic and complete revision of the conceptual approaches to managing international reserve assets is due. The current framework of the international financial system does not offer any off-the-shelf solutions to enable safeguarding the integrity of reserves and maintaining macroeconomic stability. The paper proposes potential new approaches to the safety of reserve assets. It could be implemented through the diversification of instruments and operators. The paper examines several possible solutions that might complement/replace reserves in traditional reserve currencies, ranging from compromise solutions to unconventional ones: (1) expanding the use of existing tools which carry less risk, (2) introducing new instruments, and (3) changing the paradigm. The authors conclude that the resulting system will be more volatile, decentralized, complicated and expensive to manage. However, this is the price many countries would be willing to pay for the security of their reserves.

“The new reality” means a commodity-exporting economy cannot use its accumulated fx-reserves or attract new fx-debt to smooth abrupt import reduction amid slower decline of income flow from commodity export. We use a modified version of the Ramsey—Cass—Koopmans’ model to study aggregate and structural changes in the economy under these conditions in the shorter and longer run. The results show that the potential GDP of the economy which cannot effectively substitute its import should decline both in the shorter and longer run. However, full and effective import substitution does not guarantee households would restore their volume of consumption. The reasons are, first, labor reallocation into the import-substituting sector that reduces availability of labor for other sectors and, second, the need to keep capital intensity of production at a higher level. If the efficiency of import substitution is asymmetric and biased to goods for final consumption relative to goods for investments, the structure of imported goods becomes biased to the later. Moreover, goods for final consumption experience very intensive import substitution in such a case. However, it does not result in the restored level of total consumption. The results may imply higher consumer goods inflation in practice. If import substitution is extremely inefficient in both consumption and investment goods’ production, households cannot avert a huge reduction of their welfare.

This paper explores the efficacy of the fiscal rule enacted by regulators in exporting countries, which implies the smoothing of tax revenue from the sale of natural resources. Under “efficacy” we understand its stabilization effect that is lowering volatility (countercyclicality) of key macroeconomic variables following its imposition. The approach to the operation of the fiscal rule is based on two types of assumptions: those about the type of the fiscal rule and about the structure of the economy. The first ones take into account imperfections in the workings of the revenue smoothing mechanism; the second relate to the duration of price and wage contracts, the cost of investing in foreign assets, government demand structures, household habits and the share of Ricardian households. We use a DSGE model of a small open economy with a strong reliance on commodity exports. The paper analyzes the assumptions under which various modifications of the fiscal rule lose their efficiency in relation to inflation, output and the exchange rate. The study emphasizes the importance of accurate identifying of fiscal rule workings, as well as the need for correct measurement of economic indicators in order to determine the nature of the fiscal rule effect related to revenue smoothing. The conclusion is made regarding the effectiveness of the future fiscal rule in Russia in the absence of an external wealth fund and a closed financial account. 

One of the main challenges for the Russian insurance pension system in the long term is to sustain an acceptable ratio of pensions to wages and to prevent the growth of the share of pensioners with unacceptably low pensions. The key challenges and factors affecting the level of pensions have been identified. A set of potential measures for a more acceptable dynamics of pensions, their risks and limitations have been revealed. Forecast calculations for the period up to 2050 on the model of the Russian insurance pension system developed by the authors made it possible to estimate the impact of relevant factors and measures on key pension indicators. It is shown that the implementation of these measures can ensure in 2030—2050: the coefficient of the relative level of pensions (to average wage) of about 40%; the theoretical replacement rate (at 35 years of service and the average wage in Russia) of about 50%; the ratio of the average pension payment to non-working recipients of the old-age insurance pension to the subsistence minimum for pensioners — about 250% in 2030—2035 and 380% by 2050; reducing the share of those whose pension payment is less than the minimum subsistence level, almost by half relative to the inertial scenario — to 6—8%.

The paper considers the application of the web scrapping and machine learning algorithms for the assessment of the real estate price on the secondary housing market in Moscow. For this, we collect and process the data from the CIAN website and the data from “Reforma GKH”. To evaluate real estate objects, we consider such machine learning algorithms as Elastic Net, Random Forest and Gradient Boosting. We also apply Shapley vector-based approach to interpret the results of the black-box algorithms. The results suggest that the use of black-box algorithms in assessing the price of apartments on the Moscow secondary housing market allows to obtain more accurate price estimates both for different price segments and for the sample as a whole. At the same time, Gradient Boosting has demonstrated the best accuracy among other algorithms. Interpretation based on the Shapley vector shows that the total area, year of construction, ceiling height, renovation, as well as monolithic construction technology had a positive effect on the price. The price is negatively affected by the number of floors in the house, the possibility of mortgage and lack of repairs. Developed methodology can be applied in real estate insurance, mortgage, determination of cadastral value of real estate and others.

The purpose of the article is to compare the content of the phenomenon, called the crisis of scientific publications, in the world and domestic economic and social sciences. It is shown that in the world science the disproportionate increase in prices for subscription publications is determined by purely market reasons, while in Russian science the reduction in demand for traditional journals is associated with a decrease in demand for high-quality scientific knowledge, which, in turn, is due to the measures of neoliberal science policy applied. Scenarios for the development of the situation with peer-reviewed domestic economic journals are proposed and evaluated.