Russian economy has reached the low level of inflation, but economic growth has not accelerated. Moreover, according to official forecasts, in the following years it will still be low. The article concludes that domestic demand, which is one of the main factors of growth, is significantly constrained by monetary, budgetary and fiscal spheres. The situation in the Russian economy is still hampered by the decline of the world economic growth. The prospects of financial markets are highly uncertain. This increases the possibility of crisis in the world. Leading countries widely use non-traditional measures to support their economies in the similar environment. In the world economy as well as in Russia a principally new combination of factors has emerged, which create specific features of economic growth. It requires special set of measures to stimulate such growth. The article proves that Russian regulators have large unused potential to stimulate growth. It includes monetization, long-money creation, budget and tax stimuli. It is important that the instruments, which will be used, should be based on domestic mechanisms. This will strengthen financial basis of the economy and may encourage economic growth. Some specific suggestions as to their use are made.

The Great Recession in 2008—2009 and slow recovery after it became a significant challenge both for economic policy and theory, especially for economic growth studies. New circumstances have revealed new stylized facts, for instance, the decrease in growth rates and capital accumulation in advanced economies. The paper analyzes responses to and outcomes of the Great Recession for countries at different stages of development. The authors consider the investment impact on economic growth varying through seven clusters of countries, determined according to GDP (PPP) level per capita. An attempt has been made to reveal new stylized facts based on current trends and to revise some theoretical approaches to the analysis of economic growth.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative could be treated ambiguously. On the one hand, it is intended to transform the newly acquired economic potential of that country into its higher status in the world. China invites a lot of nations to build up gigantic transit corridors by joint efforts, and doing so it applies productively its capital and technologies. International transactions in RMB are also being expanded. But, on the other hand, the Belt and Road Initiative is also a necessity for China to cope with some evident problems of its current stage of development, such as industrial overcapacity, overdependence on imports of raw materials from a narrow circle of countries, and a subordinate status in global value chains. For Russia participation in the Belt and Road Initiative may be fruitful, since the very character of that project provides us with a space to manoeuvre. By now, Russian exports to China consist primarily of fuels and other commodities. More active industrial policy is needed to correct this situation . A flexible framework of the Belt and Road Initiative is more suitable for this objective to be achieved, rather than traditional forms of regional integration, such as a free trade zone.

An initial public offering of shares is a global equity instrument of the stock market, which is used as the most effective way to raise capital for solving the strategic tasks of growth and development of the company. This tool is applicable both in international and national financial markets. The purpose of this study is to analyze the practice of attracting investment by the corporate sector of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia for 1996—2018. The article analyzes the current state of the global capital market, the size of capitalization of global stock exchanges and the primary public offering market. The degree of development of practice and the effectiveness of using the IPO tool is shown, significant country differences are revealed. The importance of this tool during privatization on market conditions and its relevance for the development of the institutional infrastructure of national stock markets and the integrated financial market of the EAEU member states are noted. The most significant advantages of IPO as a financial instrument for implementing state economic policy are identified.

This article continues the discussion about the results and prospects of applying the institutional approach to the study of economic development, which was initiated by R. Kapeliushnikov (Voprosy Ekonomiki, 2019, No. 7—8). The focus is on the balance of interests and ideas in the light of economic growth, the question of the existence and protection of property rights in various social orders, taking into account the role of the state, the characteristics of institutions in the light of the problem of efficient resource usage, the refraction of the theory of social orders through the prism of objects left outside of the study by North, Wallis and Weingast, on the one hand, and Acemoglu and Robinson, on the other hand. An assessment of the adequacy of the conclusions regarding the pan-institutional nature of the North et al.’s approach is presented, as well as directions for the development of research in the context of a new institutional economic theory.

The paper deals with problems of higher education in Russia, including such issues as learning, research, international educational relations, and finance. They are analyzed mainly in their connection with the situation in the Russian economy, and society in general. For the purpose of improving learning сontents at universities, the paper proposes to move on to the combination of online lectures with interactive seminars, opening of big companies-based chairs, expansion of the system of advanced professional training and retraining. It is reasonable in the research field to vest research officer’s title to post-graduate students, pay more attention to the expertise of their PhD dissertations, enlarge the number of Russian scientific journals issued in accordance with requirements of international econometric data bases. For international educational relations it is recommended to expand joint learning programs with foreign universities.

The article presents the results of the study of the universities’ transformation problems as a source-integrator-translator of new knowledge and technologies in conditions of digital transformation of the economy. It is shown that the modern stage of scientific and technological progress does not contradict Kondratiev’s concept of long cycles, but has its own characteristics. The hypothesis about the significance of the influence of universities on the formation of an upward wave of long cycles is confirmed on a long historical period. The current key aspects of changes in the interaction of higher education and the economy as a whole are analyzed taking into account dual problems: advanced training and delayed generalization by universities of actual transformations of the economy. The vision of the mission of the classical university (digital literacy in society) and the technical university (the formation of basic professional competences of modern engineer and researcher) is presented. Recommendations on the need for platform solutions in the organization of interactions in the field of education, on changing models of university activities taking into account the development of EduTech are given.

The article is dedicated to a comparative analysis of business elites (billionaires and millionaires) of the leading countries of the world in 2019. The paper considers the number of rich individuals, their wealth, percentage of self-made businessmen, education, age, sectoral specialization, level of oligarchy’s domination, geographical spread and global mobility. The advantages of Russian business elite are the high level of wealth, young age, the high percentage of self-made businessmen, and the high level of global mobility. The disadvantages of Russian business community are the small number, the highest level of orientation towards the energy and natural resources industries, the highest level of concentration in one city, and the highest level of oligarchy’s domination.