H.I. KHANIN
Doctor of economic sciences (DSc), Professor, Siberian Institute of Management – branch of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Novosibirsk State Technical University, Novosibirsk

D.A. FOMIN
Candidate of economic sciences (PhD), Assistant Professor, Novosibirsk State Technical University, Novosibirsk

TERRA ECONOMICUS, 2013, Vol. 11 (no. 2.1),

p. 11-15

The article deals with the thesis that in January 2013 the economic crisis has started in Russia. Such a standpoint contrasts with the more moderate assessment of the Russian statistic service. Meanwhile, absolute trust in this assessment disorientates international financial and economic organizations and professional communities; the appearance of a mere slowdown in economic growth, though considerable, is persistent. In contrast to the methodology of official statistics, our assessment of the scale of the crisis is based on the authors’ own calculations of alternative estimates of long-term macro-economic indicators of the Russian economy. Proposed assessment stems from the dynamics of real economy key indicators, including the production of electricity and the amount of turnover. The downturn in the Russian economy in the first quarter of 2013 appeared to be a result of the persistent slowdown in the economic growth during the quarters of 2012. Proceeding from previous calculations, the authors suppose the production capacities reserves exhaustion along with labor force attrition, by the end of 2012, to be the major cause of the ongoing economic crisis. We conclude that external factors – in the form of an economic slowdown in the world – are of secondary importance for the emergence of the economic crisis. While the extent of the crisis in the Russian economy is small, it can occur to be exclusively long, because it takes many years and efforts to increase fixed assets (with investment cycle taken into consideration). The authors believe that the crisis is the price Russian economy has to pay for four decades of Soviet stagnation and inefficient post-Soviet reforms. Future sustainable economic growth needs the population to pay their price, too.

O.Yu. MAMEDOV
Doctor of economic sciences (DSc), Professor, Head of the Department of Political Economy and Economic Policy, Honoured worker of science of the Russian Federation, Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don

TERRA ECONOMICUS, 2013, Vol. 11 (no. 2.1),

p. 5-10

Institutionalism has firmly established among the social sciences, and it’s rather hard today to find an article or a dissertation that can do without (more or less appropriate) the smart adjective – «institutional». Yet, adherents of classical economic school are still embarrassed and on the look-out about the new theory. Certainly, no sane economist would deny that activity of social organizations is affected not only by the influence of economic factors: social factors, including social institutions, make the «social environment» in which these social organizations work. But the approaches of economists and institutionalists to social processes distinguish in another aspect – namely, in assessment of these factors. While economists consider the influence of economic factors to be the primary ones, that is, determinative for institutional factors (as the secondary ones) as well, – institutionalists aim at institutional factors’ description as equal to economic factors. Such a standpoint favours the institutional theory to be lifted in the hierarchy of social sciences. What are, then, the « pluses» and the «minuses» of institutionalism? The author focuses on general and special features of the methodology of economic and institutional knowledge.