The paper describes the main contributions of the 2013 Nobel Prize winners in economics E. Fama, R. Shiller and L.-P. Hansen in the analysis of the financial markets efficiency. Discussed are the very idea of the impossibility to systematically gain riskless profits in the short- and long-term perspectives, the fomalizations of this idea in the key asset pricing models, methods of testing these models, and the theory of behavioral finance as one of the explanations of the inefficiency and irrationality of financial markets. A short overview of the research dealing with the efficiency of Russian stock market is also given.

The article considers the ways to overcome the methodological gap between the analysis of economic cycles and the pure economic theory as suggested by the Western economists in the 1920s and 1930s. In this context, N. D. Kondratiev’s project of economic dynamics is analyzed, which implied a radically different vision of the opportunities to solve this problem.

The paper studies through the lens of the economic theory of the firm the development of two managerial disciplines: supply chain management and relationship marketing. The author demonstrates which ideas have been borrowed by these disciplines from the economic theory of the firm, and in what extent their implications may be useful for the latter.

The Russian economy is in transition period “from plan to market”, which is characterized by immature institutions and expansion of rent-seeking behavior. In this article, the authors consider rent as a possible excess return above the minimum income needed to encourage an agent to implement the actions specified by the principal. In this paper the authors present and analyze the following types of rent: natural, exclusive, political, administrative and transitional. They also consider the consequences of the rent-seeking behavior for Russian economy.

The paper considers the problem of autonomous recessions in the Russian economy, which are explained as a drop of the output caused by endogenous shocks of the supply and/or demand. In order to determine possible factors of the autonomous recession we consider the stylized facts and other characteristics of such recessions in OECD economies in 2000—2012. Using these findings we study the current state of the Russian economy in terms of factors of a possible recession. We also examine the countercyclical policy of the government. The latter is done using different approaches of calculation of the output gap, including the determination of the levels of factor utilization that don’t accelerate the inflation rate. These results are used to make a conclusion about the optimal design of the countercyclical policy that reflects the characteristics of the recession and the output gap as well as the key features of Russia as a resource-based economy.

We examine export and import prices for Russian commodities relative to world prices during 2002—2011 across aggregated and disaggregated commodity groups. We also propose an aggregated export price competitiveness index as a tool of monitoring quality dynamics and a composite price competitiveness rating by commodity groups.

The paper analyzes the main tenets of economic integration theory in order to reveal the features of the CIS regional integration and propose approaches of its theoretical model development. Quantitative methods have been used to assess the effects of creation and trade diversion, the relationship between bilateral exports, investment and technology exchange. It is established that the integration of the CIS deviates from the traditional model. At the lower stage it is accompanied by deepening cooperation in various sectors that have an effect on trade integration. Thus in contrast to the model of the European Union, it is a “non-linear” one. It is argued that the integration policy in the CIS region must be changed: more attention should be paid to the investment and trade agenda instead of trade.

The paper analyzes the characteristics of quantitative standards of the new Regulation on awarding academic degrees using the statistical publication activity of seekers of the degree of doctor in economics in the first half of 2013 in the context of each scientific field. The author conducts stress tests of works of doctoral students to meet requirements of the new Regulation on the basis of detailed analysis of the data. The paper is aimed for discussion, especially from the point of view of increasing requirements to work applicants and their justification.