There is growing evidence that the financial structure depends on the level of economic development of the country. In developed countries, firstly, there is a convergence of financial structures and, secondly, an increase in the share of non-bank financial intermediation sectors in national financial systems. Therefore, we propose to proceed to the analysis of the three-tier structure of the financial sector (banks — non-banking financial institutions — financial markets), for which we have developed new indicators that assess the relationship between a non-bank financial intermediation sector and financial markets. They showed that in the last 7—8 years in Russia there has also been an outstripping growth of this sector. Our regression studies, firstly, have confirmed the conclusion that in Russia the financial structure (in the traditional sense) slows down economic growth and, secondly, allowed us to assume (based on the results of a crosscountry analysis) that the current structure of the Russian financial sector (with a predominant share of banks) contributes to an increase in the volatility of economic growth. The behavior of the new financial structure ratios and regression analysis based on traditional financial structure ratios indicate the need to adjust government policy in the financial sector in order to ensure faster growth of financial markets.

The article studies the foundations of the risk-sensitivity concept of regulatory banking capital. The author states that risk of losses, including unexpected ones covered in accordance with the concept by banking capital cannot be measured with satisfactory accuracy. This is the principal obstacle to the concept implementation. The efficacy of Basel III capital regime with parallel use of risk-sensitive and risk-insensitive approaches is under scrutiny. Rationales are adduced that under this regime risk-sensitive approach has no real value. The study of risk-sensitive approach abilities among macro-prudential tools leads to the conclusion that its efficiency is apparently insufficient. The analysis of the academic study on the issue is carried out. This research recommends to impose risk-sensitive capital requirements if the risk of bank assets can be measured quite accurately. It is shown that the study is based on the implicit assumption of the absence of unexpected losses phenomenon in banking activity. This assumption is unrealistic and makes research in effect objectless. The major inference from the study is that the regulatory capital risk-sensitivity concept is not well-founded and its use for capital adequacy regulation is inadvisable. For micro-prudential purposes the simple leverage deems more expedient. It is capable to ensure for capital regulation the reasonable balance of risk-sensitivity to failure, simplicity and comparability.

The author introduces a category of nonstandard consumption, which remarkably differs from conventional patterns of pursuing economic self-interests. Based upon previous studies, a comparative analysis of panic, impulsive and compulsive buying as well as status and ethical consumption is conducted. Empirically, spread of these forms of consumption and their associations with the consumer preferences are revealed along with antecedents of each form. Data were collected from a nationwide representative survey of the Russian population aged 18+. The survey was conducted by the HSE University in June—July 2023 in 55 regions of Russia as face-to-face interviews by place of residence. The sample includes 6,000 respondents. Apart from descriptive statistics, factor analysis is used for structuring consumer preferences and logistic regressions are used to estimate the main predictors of nonstandard forms of consumption. It has been revealed that all five forms of nonstandard consumption are associated at a high level of significance and characterize more active groups of consumers. Significant relations of each consumption form are investigated with the social and demographic parameters, per capita income, types of residence, involvement into online shopping, use of various information channels, and the level of psychological distress.

Our study explores subjective inequality using two different measures. The first one is agreement with the statement that the gap between the rich and the poor is large. The second one is an emotional reaction to this gap in terms of intensity of anger. Using data from the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) for 2019, we show that these measures, though correlated, are not duplicates. The first finding is that respondents are more likely to state significant gaps than to admit a negative emotion related to this fact. The second finding is that these dimensions of subjective inequality are associated with different behavioral reactions. Agreeing that the income gaps are too large correlates with demand for redistribution more strongly than the anger does. As to being angry on the inequality, it is more strongly associated with perception of potential conflicts between the poor and the rich. In other words, even agreeing that income inequality is high many individuals do not internalize it and do not accept it as a problem that touches their emotional health.

The study develops a methodology of business expectations index nowcasting with testing on data for the Russian economy as a whole and its regions. This methodology differs from the existing solutions in that it introduces a Bayesian averaging approach to define a set of search patterns for nowcasting and solves the issue of aggregation of time series by individual queries. The developed indices have shown a high level of adequacy, serving as effective tools to reflect shock events in the country’s economic and political landscape and also as predictors of fluctuations in survey­based expectation indices. The application of the presented methodology has revealed the factors that affect the volatility of business expectations indices depending on the level of development and sectoral specialization of Russian regions. In particular, financial and economic centers of highly developed regions and developed regions with diversified economy show high volatility, while business expectations indices in less developed agrarian and commodity regions show low volatility. These results can be useful for economic policy decisions and are of interest to researchers concerned with economic stability and forecasting.

In this paper the following models are compared: restricted and unrestricted MIDAS-models (mixed data sampling models), MFBVAR-model (mixed frequency Bayesian vector autoregression), Linear model with regularization (MIDAS_L1-, MIDAS_L2and MIDAS_PC-model) and dynamic factor model. The results are compared with classical autoregression as a benchmark. Production indices for different industries and indicators characterizing Russian GDP and its components, energy prices and PMI of Russia and its main trading partners, as well as indicators derived from the analysis of sentiment of news articles published by a number of major media and blogs are used as explanatory variables. The paper also proposes a method of rapid assessment of the current state of the economy based on data for the first or first two months of the quarter in question only. The use of this approach in combination with news sentiment analysis allows to draw conclusions about current economic situation extremely rapidly. Models’ accuracy is assessed by cross-validation for periods before and after the Q2 2022, the significance of the effect of adding news variables is assessed using the Diebold—Mariano test. When testing during the crisis period (starting from the Q1 2022), the addition of news variables leads to an increase in accuracy for 45% of the models considered, and the average improvement (reduction in the average absolute error) was 1.39 points (the reduction in MAE for the science-based GDP growth rates of Russia is 0.64 p.p.). At the same time, in a calmer (pre-sanction) period, the advantage of news is less noticeable: an increase in accuracy was recorded in 30% of cases with an average decrease in error of 1.54 points (the decrease in MAE for Russia’s GDP growth rate is 0.26 p.p.), and the change accuracy of science data when adding variables reflecting the news background turns out to be statistically insignificant. Thus, the use of news sentiment is not a “silver bullet” in the task of nowcasting Russian GDP, but in times of crisis it can serve as a good and, importantly, very operative indicator of the state of the economy and can be used in conjunction with more traditional explanatory variables.

The article analyzes post­institutionalism, highlighting its inability to present a “new mainstream” in institutional studies in economics. Pointing out some real problems of institutional studies of modern society, post­institutionalism does not provide what economic theory needs. The rejection of functionalism, rationalism and efficiency and optimality criteria sidetracks this approach to the field of sociology and cultural studies; de­economization is also effected on account of target substitution of institution transplanting. Another essential problem is the confusion of notions through their “unsealing” that enables an “alternate” interpretation of blockchain and allows to oppose against the transaction costs minimization principle, basing on the criticisms of the Coase Theorem. Rejecting this interpretation, the article claims that the studies of the institutional complexity of modern society does not require refusal of classical approaches, but their clarification. The paper also criticizes the call for “postdisciplinarity” and raises the question of the quality of interdisciplinary institution researches.