The paper deals with the global and national trends of economic and social development at the final stage of the global structural crisis. Special attention is paid to intellectual challenges economists will face with in the post-crisis world: prospects of growth without inflation, new global currencies and the role of cryptocurrencies, central banks independence and their role in economic growth stimulation, new tasks and patterns of government regulation, inequality and growth. Special features of Russian post-crisis development are also under consideration. Among them: prospects of macroeconomic support of growth, inflation targeting, new fiscal rule, social dynamics and new challenges to welfare state. The paper concludes that the main obstacles for economic growth in Russia are concentrated in the non-economic area.

The article examines the financial structure of Russia. A retrospective analysis of the concept of financial development in the world economic science was conducted. To calculate the quantitative characteristics of Russia’s financial structure, both the indicators from international practice and the original ones supplementing them were used. The analysis of the influence of the financial structure on economic growth was conducted, on the basis of which the conclusion was made about the need to implement state policy aimed at achieving an outstripping growth of the non-banking financial sector. The reasons for this conclusion are given in the discussion of the results.

The article analyzes tendencies of national payment systems development in the European Union and Russia: electronic and deposit money, bank cards, financial technologies in the field of retail payments. The author identifies factors that stimulate the development of cashless retail payments and the national payment card systems in the European Union, as well as the problems and prospects of this sector forming in Russia. Recommendations on the development of a competitive environment and financial technologies in the field of retail payments in Russia are proposed.

The paper considers the degree of activity of Russian mutual funds. According to the results obtained, index funds on average deviate by 12% from their base index, while active funds deviate by 56%. It is shown that more active funds are more costly for the shareholders, but at the same time demonstrate a lower net profit adjusted for risk. The deviation of index funds from the base index leads to an even greater loss of profitability than in the case of active funds. The results show that active management of capital in Russia is experiencing difficulties both in terms of high fees and low profitability. Market underdevelopment and low competition create all the prerequisites for the existence of such a situation. As a solution, we propose to develop the market of passive capital management both by monitoring the prices of their products, and through measures aimed at increasing the understanding of the essence of passive management by the mass investor.

The subject of the article is “unorthodox” gazelles - politically-connected or big business-affiliated fast-growing firms. It is established that rents play a significant role in the commercial success of such firms. Nevertheless, as predicted by the well-known “limited access framework” (by D. North and co-authors), and contrary to the standard interpretation of rents, the latter can play a positive role in the transitional economy. The authors have identified on empirical material some clearly positive scenarios among the main patterns of the development of “unorthodox” gazelles in Russia. The article discusses the conditions under which “unorthodox” gazelles can become an instrument of developmental state.

This paper presents the first in the Russian literature review of research devoted to the roles of private and public investment in security in the economics of crime. We describe theoretical and empirical papers that deal with the strength of the deterrence and diversion effects, as well as the interaction between different security measures. Special attention is given to the roles that income inequality and institutional set-up play in the formation of the profile of security measures and the resulting distribution of crime. We also present empirical results based on the Russian regional data, which reveal a significant relationship between inequality and the ratio of private to public security measures, as well as substantial differences between more and less democratic regions.

Alcohol is traditionally considered by economists as an addictive good. Its consumption is often connected to irrational behaviours as well as negative external effects: growth of crime rates, traffic, occupational, and home accidents, fires. That is why most countries with high levels of alcohol consumption introduce special policy measures to reduce it and, as a result, its negative impact on society. In recent decade these policies were also adopted in Russia. This paper analyzes an impact of alcohol policy measures on crime rates. Empirical study is based on econometric analysis of panel data on Russian regions in 2003-2015. The results confirm effectiveness of temporal restrictions on alcohol sales in regard to juvenile and adult crime. Increasing price of vodka due to higher rates of excise tax reduces a number of crimes by teenagers. Meanwhile, price measures do not influence crime rates among adults.

The review discusses the ideas presented in the book by D. Tapscott and A. Tapscott - specifically, the concept of distributed capitalism allowed for by blockchain technology. The blockchain era is characterized by development of a new institution of trust; disruption of financial intermediation; economic inclusion of hundreds of millions of citizens in developing countries; an increase in competition and a decrease in inequality. The authors see the blockchain revolution as a solution to the problem of discrimination against intellectual property creators, who have to hand over a large part of the value created to intermediaries. They consider the main opposition to distributed capitalism to stem from the feudal financial system which loses ground under new conditions, where economic agents may use alternative currencies and interact directly with each other without risk and high transaction costs.