The formation of economics as a science is traditionally referenced to Adam Smith and presented — even if with reservations — as an ascent from delusions to true theory, underlying almost all modern schools of economic thought. Despite the importance of Smith’s Wealth of Nations, such a view does not reflect the real course of the evolvement of scientific economic knowledge and prevents adequate perception of the logic of its subsequent development. The article substantiates the need to rethink the initial phase of the history of economic science on the basis of a closer linkage of this history with the scientific revolution, which created conditions for the emergence of a whole range of blueprints of scientific economics, associated with such names as William Petty, John Law, James Steuart. It is shown that the blueprint of theoretical economics, which set the course for the development of economic science and was personified by Adam Smith, relied heavily on the work of Richard Cantillon, who generalized knowledge and experiences of mercantilist writers on the methodological basis that arose during the scientific revolution of the 17^th — early 18^th centuries.

The doctrine of Alexander Bogdanov, the forerunner of the comprehensive system analysis developed later, is considered in the article from the point of view of the typology of the basic factors of the systemic development of the economy. The paradigm of space-time as an environment for the functioning of the economy in Bogdanov’s interpretation is analyzed in connection with the well-known concepts of space and time in physics, which allows us to take a fresh look at the relationship and roles of macro-, meso-, micro- and nanolevels in the economy. The representation of human economic activity as a combination of the processes of cognition and creation of spiritual and material values makes it possible to expand the concept of the connectedness of economic phenomena through causal (successive) and induction (mirror) dependencies. From this perspective, the reasons for the dominance of short-range and long-range effects, short- and long-term effects in different periods of the development of the Russian economy are considered.

To identify possible equity market implications of restrictions on foreign ownership and investment in Russia; as well as against Russian ownership abroad; we reviewed data from 38 countries and applied fixed effects models to panel data. We show that restrictive measures against foreign ownership and investment will have a negative impact on the capitalization of the domestic stock market. The effect will be amplified under the influence of such factors as corruption; freedom of investment; financial; trade and business freedoms. The quality of the judiciary is most important when examining the share of the domestic stock market in the world stock market. Tax incentives and increased fiscal freedom will not be able to have a positive impact in the face of restrictive measures against foreign ownership and investment.

The article analyzes the relationship between the price of housing and the volume of issued housing loans in Russia in 2009—2021. Has the development of the mort- gage lending market in recent years driven up housing prices; as has often been claimed? Using data from Rosstat and the Central Bank of the Russian Federation on average housing prices and lending volumes in Russia as a whole; as well as in Russian regions; the significance of mutual influence of their quarterly and annual changes is estimated using vector autoregression and panel vector autoregression models; taking into account exogenous variables. It has been found that mortgage lending dynamics was not a significant and stable factor in the growth of housing prices. The latter largely depended on the households’ solvent demand; macroeco- nomic conditions; the state of regional economy; and dynamics of the housing stock.

The paper assesses the advantages of large cities as places of concentration of economic activity in terms of production efficiency. For this purpose; we made quantitative estimates of the relationship between the size of cities and indicators of productivity. The theory justifies the presence of such relationships by various agglomeration effects; estimates of which have been reduced over the last 20 years as the number of empirical studies has been growing. The calculations are based on Russian municipal statistics; taking into account its limitations. The study has demonstrated that the direction of the relationship between city size and productivity depends on the characteristics of the industry structure of the city economy; which; in turn; depends on the city’s place in the urban hierarchy. A negative relationship is characteristic of highly specialized cities; while a positive one emerges as industry localization declines and diversification of the city economy increases.

Studies of employment growth factors are more relevant during crises. Review of foreign studies and analysis of Russian data in 2005—2018 using a distributed lag model based on the Almon method shows that there are multidirectional short-term direct and longer-term indirect effects of starting a business on employment growth. The regional context is important; and the prevalence of one effect over another and the direction of influence of additional factors depend on the type of region. Thus; for large agglomerations with high labor productivity and an active SME sector; an S-shaped lag structure of the dependence of employment on the creation of new firms was revealed: with short-term positive; medium-term negative; and further positive effects. For regions with low urbanization; labor productivity and a less active SME sector; the most striking is the short-term positive impact on employment from the opening of firms; which is replaced by a negative one after 2—3 years. At the same time; in the latter regions; the total impact may be higher than in the former; and on average; a new firm (per 1;000 people in the workforce) leads to an increase in employment by 0.56 p.p. This provides grounds for some policy recommendations. 

The indicator of monetization of the economy; equal to the ratio of nominal money supply to nominal GDP; is very popular among Russian economists and is used to assess the effectiveness of the monetary policy pursued and is often employed in cross-country comparisons. Many economists believe that the monetization of the Russian economy is excessively low; which reflects the underdevelopment of the national financial system and requires steps towards monetary expansion. According to this view insufficient monetization of the Russian economy is as an obstacle to its rapid development; therefore increase in monetization should be made a key priority of the Bank of Russia’s policy. Although widely accepted; the complex of theories; ideas and assumptions behind these recommendations; however; has never been adequately empirically tested. In this paper we formulate several statements that are shared by the majority of economists in this area; based on a review of relevant publications; and then test the statements on cross-country data. As a result of empirical testing; it was shown that most of the statements are not supported by evidence. The monetization indicator does not carry any additional relevant information about the macroeconomics conditions; having other indicators considered. High monetization does not create additional stimulus for economic growth; and the ability of central banks to affect monetization is limited significantly. In countries with low monetization; inflationary risks of monetary expansion are sharply higher. The conducted empirical study provides arguments against the broad use of the monetization indicator in macroeconomic analysis and casts doubt on the idea of laying responsibility for increasing the level of Russian economy monetization on the Bank of Russia.