Volume 2017, Issue 4, 2017

The second decade of the XXI century has seen major changes concerning the activities of non-profit organizations. First, the status of non-profit organizations (NPOs) as a subject of social policy has significantly improved, aided by some changes in the socioeconomic structure of various states after the global crisis. This trend is characteristic of most developed countries in the world. Secondly, the NPOs have become more popular among the population: as a result, both the number of NPO members and their professionalism have increased. Thirdly, government agencies are responding to modern challenges and become actively engaged in the development and implementation of mechanisms supporting and enabling socially oriented NPOs. All these factors show that the activity of non-profit organizations is becoming an integral part of socio-economic processes that improve the quality of life of the population. A list of public utility services provided by NPOs covers the main range of indicators of quality of life of the population. About 60 percent of the more than 223 thousand NPOs registered in the country have received the status of socially oriented nonprofit organizations (SONPOs), which allows them to rely on state support. To further enhance the effectiveness of socially oriented non-profit organizations one should: improve the regulatory framework, including preferential loans and banking services for socially oriented NGOs; develop the supportive infrastructure for socially oriented NPOs; share experience, e.g. through the establishment of advisory centers and implementation of mentoring in the field SONPOs; include SONPOs in assessing the effectiveness of the authorities in the field of social policy; inform citizens about the possibilities to receive services from the SONPOs and their activities in general.

A single-industry town, or monotown, is a socio-economic system that possesses specific goals and functions as vectors of its development. In this connection, relatively new social requirements appear along with the traditional evolutionary factors. These new requirements involve conditions for the formation of human capital assets, the level of sociocultural infrastructure, the quality of urban communities, and the degree of development of communications. Therefore, the list of strategic criteria for the development of single-industry towns should include indicators of the quality of the social sphere and the quality of life of the population. The research develops evaluation approaches based on identification of the concept and definition of the structural components of the urban social sphere. The paper proposes methods for forecasting the level of the social infrastructure of a single-industry city. The study features the case of Shakhty, a large mining community in the Rostov region. The research defines the necessity for monitoring the dynamics of the development of the social sphere in single-industry towns, formulates groups of criteria for effectiveness management, summarizes the principles of their scaling, and provides recommendations for evaluation of the socio-economic development level. An analysis of the dynamics of the social sphere development in a single-industry town should become an adequate non-ideological integral social and economic criterion for the effectiveness and efficiency of municipal management.

The article provides a justification for taking into account the energy factor in assessing the quality of life of households. The result of the study is the conclusion that the provision of social and economic development, which can be estimated by using such a composite indicator as the quality of life of the population (households), should include such parameters as reducing the level of resource consumption and reducing the anthropogenic load on the natural environment. To assess the quality of life of the population (households), it is important to take into account such energy factor as the level of energy saving, which affects environmental and climate change. Increased energy consumption contributes to the pollution of atmospheric air with CO2 and, as a result, to climate change and the occurrence of natural anomalies and environmental disasters. The research involves an analysis of the dynamics of incomes and consumer spending of households (including expenditures on housing and utility services). The analysis allows the authors to conclude that the quality of life of households is reduced due to the outstripping growth of consumer spending over their incomes, which can be explained by a decrease in the efficiency of energy supply. Another reason is an increase in the energy intensity of the housing and communal services due to energy loss caused by poor quality of living quarters. Given the role of the energy factor in assessing the quality of life, the authors use the ecological and energy approach to expand the current methods by including indicators that would assess its impact. The result of the study is an improved methodology for life quality assessment in terms of the energy factor. The article provides an accurate description of the indicators and the calculating procedure. In the opinion of the authors, the use of the ecological and energy approach to life quality assessment and its application for territorial comparisons (countries, regions, cities) will help to justify the mismatch between the growth rates of people’s wellbeing and the resource consumption (energy, biological, etc.).

The paper features some factors that influence economic and social situation of monoprofile municipal units in modern Russia. The macroeconomic factors breaking social and economic balance of the monotown can be of technical and process design, economic and (or) institutional nature. Technical and process design factors are connected with objective change of technological ways and assume the advancing actions of subjects of the market for innovative development. Economic factors are defined by state policy in the field of formation of cumulative demand and regulation of inflation. Institutional factors depend on the institutional order established in the society. Based on statistical indicators and results of sociological researches, the current study proves that because of inflation of the offer, the high level of differentiation of income of the population and poverty in modern Russia the consumer demand and demand for investments decreases. The operating institutional order, created with direct participation of the state, prevent a properly correlation between the social contribution of market subjects and remuneration, which, in its turn, prevents economy from performing its main goals compatible to high standards of life of most of people and leads to socio-economic and regional inequality. The authors conclude that the macroeconomic nature of deterioration factors in economic and social situation of modern Russian monoprofile municipal units predetermines the leading role of the federal center in their elimination, and the volume of the financial means allocated for these purposes has to be increased and balanced. When developing concrete measures of the state support of the monotowns in the current complicated socio-economic situation, one should analyze the character of the causes and the system of indicators. The complex of the indicators of economic and social situation of monotowns, which are formally established by the Russian government, is unbalanced now and includes only outdated indicators.

Clusters are considered as one of the types of local production systems, the mandatory features of which are the availability of economic opportunities for selfdevelopment, manageability and security of various public and private institutions. Among the main advantages of clusters as a form of organization of production in the territory are the territorial localization of the main mass of economic entities participating in the cluster; innovative orientation; opportunities to enhance the competitive advantages of the cluster location region; taking into account the positive synergies of the territorial agglomeration. The paper gives a brief description of the world experience in the formation of modern clusters, including the approaches taken as the initial reference point for strategic development abroad, including the EU countries, as well as the concept of clustering as a way to use regional resources and scientific and technical potential effectively. The authors enumerate the main difficulties in the implementation of cluster policy in the conditions of Russia, including the weak positions of applied science; lack of an effective mechanism to stimulate the development of small and medium-sized enterprises; shortcomings in the management system; problems of financing, etc.

Sustainable development of rural areas and the agricultural sector is very important for resource regions, the gross regional product of which is formed by 50% due to extraction and processing of minerals. In order to be able to conduct a competent policy for the development of agriculture in municipal areas, it is necessary to assess the existing potential of rural areas in the municipal districts. The article describes the application of the author’s approach to the assessment of the resource potential for the development of agriculture in the region by the example of the Kemerovo region. It features indicators of the resource potential of rural territories, which determine various aspects of the development of the territory: economic, social and infrastructural. The data of the municipal statistics of the official websites of Russian Federal State Statistics Service (Kemerovo Statistics Agency) are used as a basis for analysis and evaluation. The results of the analysis allow the authors to rank the municipal districts according to the method of rating evaluation based on the proposed indicators. The paper involves some conclusions about the priorities for the development of agriculture in certain municipal areas of the region.

The current paper explores the issues of the origin and classification of numerous «dispersed» institutes that deal with development of Russian regions and serve as a tool of economic diversification to improve the partnership between government and business owners. The research is based on the functional approach, which allows the author to select types of territories with special regime of economic activities, to define characteristics of special economic zones (SEZ) according to activity types and provided preferences, and to describe the most and least attractive Advanced Social and Economic Development Areas (ASED) for residents or participants. The study reveals the urgency of the problem, i.e. the lack of extrapolating mechanisms that would make it possible to share organizing and functioning experiences of different territories to increase the effectiveness of state and municipal investment. The study includes an analysis of performance targets to compare the performance of different ASED for each territory, for SEZ with poor performance (which is mostly caused by the problems of spatial development) and for other development institutions. In the conclusion the author states the following needs: a) to ensure real federalism, b) to form effective incentives to support the formation and realization of the potential of small and medium business in Russian regions.

The Tomsk region has a poorly developed road network of federal, regional and local significance, which has a negative impact on the development of the resource sector that plays a key role in the local economy. The article offers an approach to assessment of transport accessibility of distant and remote settlements of the Tomsk region taking into account the specifics of road infrastructure and complex natural hazards. It gives a unified set of climatic factors limiting the functioning and development of the road transport system of the taiga zone of Western Siberia. The authors have analyzed the criteria characterizing the level of functional component of accessibility, as in the case of distant and remote areas of the Verkhneketsky district of the Tomsk region. It is concluded that the low degree of transport accessibility of the Tomsk region depends largely on the economic conditions and transport infrastructure. It includes the unavailability of year-round use roads, the lowest share of paved roads, a long period without river crossings, destruction of bridges and high transport tariffs.

The deteriorating economic situation caused by the economic crisis that began in 2014 with the imposition of sanctions against Russia from its Western «partners» has also affected the social and economic indicators of the Kemerovo region. Before 2016, real disposable incomes of citizens had been decreasing due to high inflation and a nominal wage cut. In 2017 the country started recovering from the crisis due to the so-called import substitution. However, the situation is still far from the pre-crisis level. Economic instability and the risk of depreciation of accumulated funds are forcing the residents of the Kemerovo region to increase the share of the saved income. The low level of financial literacy of the Kuzbass citizens leads to the fact that the population prefers to keep savings either at home or on a deposit account. This form of savings, although convenient and virtually risk-free, will neither save the accumulated funds from inflationary depreciation nor bring any significant income. The aim of the article is to study the issues of personal income investments as a factor in improving the quality of life of the residents of the Kemerovo Region using the example of the monotown of Yurga.

The paper studies and summarizes some theoretical views on the essence and content of the management system of the agro-industrial complex in the Kyrgyz Republic: the problems, shortcomings, experience in the implementation of economic reforms and the possibility of its use in local conditions. The study features the state of socio-economic development of the republic in the current market conditions. The research on the interaction of management bodies allows the authors to reveal some tendencies of development of the agro industrial complex. The paper introduces a mechanism for improving the interaction of the management system, practical approaches to economic programming and solving management problems in agro-industrial complex and economic policy. The proposals developed for the organization of corporate management of the agro-industrial complex will contribute to the successful solution of various tasks: to increase the economic efficiency of the agricultural sector, to raise the competitiveness of agricultural products and, ultimately, to provide the food security of the Kyrgyz Republic. The paper features a methodology for the rational organization of corporate governance. The methodology takes into account the individual characteristics and parameters of enterprises of various institutional forms of economic environment, geographical location and many other macro and microeconomic factors, as well as the interests of the state and regional business.

The need to study investment problems rises from the fact that investment is one of the main means of integrating the young sovereign national economy in the process of economic globalization. The investment policy of the recipient of capital, in addition to general theoretical and specific features of the economic reform in a particular country, should contain mechanisms that stimulate the attraction of foreign investment in order to improve the efficiency of the national economy. Economic transformations in Kyrgyzstan proceed in the conditions of investment deficit. An insignificant part of long-term credit investments, small amounts of budget injections, lack of an internal investment market – all these factors indicate a low investment activity of the country’s economy. The aim of this study is to systematically generalize the conditions for investing in new forms of governance in the context of a general globalization of agriculture. The paper clarifies the foundations of innovative development of the agro industrial complex, identifies the directions for the sustainable development of the agro industrial complex, introduces some ways of forming an innovative model for the development of the agricultural sector, and develops some ways of optimizing the investment development of crop and livestock production in the Kyrgyz Republic. The article outlines the main ways to improve the efficiency of their use and includes a qualitative assessment of the investment climate of the national economy.