In the economic literature authors believe that central banks manage long-term interest rates on loans through the short-term money market interest rate in order to maintain price stability and balanced economic growth. However, macroeconomic theory tells extremely sparingly about the interest rate channel of monetary policy. In general terms, it conducts changes through a term premium and expectations in the government securities market. In applied research, economists only observe the final reaction of lending rates to the non-financial sector. Economists traditionally believe that the interest rate channel requires a developed financial sector. In some cases, in particular, at zero rates or in a small open economy that depends on the exchange rate, the interest rate channel works poorly. However, its effectiveness can be maintained without developed financial markets. The answer is the pricing of banking loans.

The article analyzes the effects of measures to raise the investment rate from 21% to 25% of GDP up to 2024 on GDP growth and monetary policy. We conduct the analysis using an econometric general equilibrium model that reflects key features of the Russian economy. Achieving the target sequentially implies adding about 14 p. p. of GDP of public and/or private investment over 2019—2024 compared to the unchanged investment rate scenario. We find raising private investment to be the most efficient for stimulating GDP growth up to 2024. Among sources of public investment funding, using the sovereign wealth fund gives the highest GDP growth up to 2024. Nevertheless, given low public investment efficiency, a significant fraction of GDP growth becomes inflationary in this case. If the central bank minimizes the risk of inflation, inefficient public investment can lead the economy to equilibrium with higher private interest rates.

In our paper, we study the impact of active investment strategies and factors of their success in the Russian market of collective investment — self-confidence of managers, commissions of management companies (MC) — on return rates of mutual funds. For the first time, not only equity mutual funds, but also bond mutual funds are considered as an object of study; the time period is since 2012. Our study is based on data on the structure of mutual fund portfolios provided by Investfunds. We propose a number of original indicators of an active management style and consider the profitability of mutual funds relative to various benchmarks. Based on testing of multivariate regression models, it has been revealed that the return rate of equity mutual funds is negatively affected by a share of stocks in the fund portfolio which are not included in the market index. When managers take into account their previous negative investment experience, it contributes to the growth of mutual fund return rates. Active investment strategies correlate with increased commissions (up to 4.5% of NAV), but they do not allow an investor to receive higher return rates than index investments. An increase in the share of corporate bonds allows the fund manager to outperform benchmarks for bond funds. For the first time, a nonlinear relationship between the size of mutual funds and the value of commissions has been revealed for the Russian market.

In light of the sanction pressure on Russia, as well as a sharp deterioration in the global financial system under the conditions of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, it is expedient to increase operations in the national currencies of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). The purpose of the study is to consider the Eurasian and the Latin American experience of dedollarization and the advancement of settlements in national currencies and to propose measures for creating a comprehensive program to promote settlements in the national currencies of the EAEU countries. The article analyzes the dynamics of operations in these currencies on the FX market of the Russian Federation, estimates the integrated FX market of the EAEU countries, including the experience of developing operations with the Chinese yuan. The authors have identified the prospects of the Russian ruble as a regional currency of the EAEU.

The paper takes a critical view on the prevalent approaches to developing financial literacy programs. It has been shown that meta-analytical and review studies indicate low efficiency of financial literacy improvement programs: their effect on financial behavior is either statistically insignificant or statistically significant, but practically negligible. Among potential reasons of financial literacy programs low efficiency the role of behavioral factors in financial decision making and the impossibility of determining “financially literate” behavior from the perspective of an outside observer are considered. It is concluded that the currently dominant criteria for assessing financially competent behavior can be characterized either as procedural, within which not the consequences of financial decisions are considered, but how consciously they are taken, or as normative, within which the government differentiates the consumers attitudes into wrong and right. Both groups of criteria are based on a non-economic understanding of rationality.

The article examines the problems and prospects of the history of economic thought (HET) based on a survey of 53 Russian and 170 international scholars. It has been demonstrated that the expansion of the range of historiographic methods, growing interest of the HET community towards the history of the 20^th century economics as well as growing cooperation of historians of economic thought with the scholars from different social sciences and humanities have increased the attractiveness of the HET field among young researchers. These developments help to reduce the problem of the HET community’s aging and allows to look ahead to the future of the HET in a positive way. Against the background of these trends, theoretical, methodological and institutional features of the Russian community of historians of economic thought are analyzed. The analysis reveals that the members of the Russian community have more in common with their international colleagues than fundamental differences.

Foreign trade policy and its role in the economic growth of the national economy are considered through the prism of history and comparison of the formation of the industrial economy in the Russian Empire and the North American United States. The author compares the protectionism of D. I. Mendeleev, described in his economic works, and the free trade thinking of the American scholar W. Sumner, who formulated the “misconceptions” of protectionism. Mendeleev’s proper protectionism is grounded on the basic principles (incentivizing internal competition, growth of consumption, bringing up of new industries ), which are relevant for contemporary Russia. The author gives a typical example of the formation and decline of the factory industry using the case of mirror factories in the Ryazan province. These historical analogies, the paper argues, are necessary for the correct assessment of the current situation and for coming up with valid solutions aimed at the development of the Russian economy.

The Russian economy and its modern transformations are of great interest to French researchers. The economic history of Russia has become the subject of analysis of the book by J. Vercueil “Political economy of Russia: 1918—2018”. In it, from the standpoint of modern French regulationism (a type of institutionalism ), questions of economic reforms in Russia and their evolution over the past 30 years are considered. The article analyzes three basic concepts of the French author, defining the modern Russian economic system: (1) “Russian disease” as a kind of Dutch disease; (2) rental mode of accumulation; (3) the “Gazprom” way of regulating the economy. In addition, the originality of the use of the term “political economy” is considered with reference to a specific country; Vercueil’s interpretation of the theory of “economics of shortage” by J. Kornai; the mechanism for resolving the problem of arrears in a transition economy, as well as the issues of classification and periodization of economic reforms, their pace and content. The role and place of economic advisers and the IMF in the course of Gaidar reforms are discussed. The article gives a critical analysis of the propositions and hypotheses put forward by the author.