Human Capital as a Key Factor of Economic Growth in Crisis

Abstract

Introduction In crisis, economic connections between entrepreneurial structures are broken, which leads to failures of their functioning and slowdown of rates of economic growth. Under the influence of unemployment and reduction of effective demand, economic conditions are further aggravated, which leads to significant reduction of entrepreneurial activity and reduction of living standards of the population. In Russia, the recent financial crisis has taken the most unfavorable form, as financial failures of the market are accompanied by unfavorable situation in the global energy markets, which constitute the foundation of Russian economy, and implementation of sanctions, which determined additional load on economics and complicates the process of overcoming of the crisis. Financial mechanisms used for fighting crisis phenomena in economy do not bring the desired results, leading only to slowdown of recession rates and economic growth. Thus, the search for new non-financial methods of overcoming of crisis becomes actual. Under the conditions of post-industrial economy, one of the most important production factors is human capital, which is the most flexible resource of business in particular and economy on the whole, which determines the use of other resources. Human capital is considered a source of economic growth under the stable economic conditions, but its role in crisis is not studied well. Based on this, the authors of the article offer a hypothesis that human capital is a key source of innovational potential and a key factor of economic growth in crisis. The purpose of the article is to verify this hypothesis and determine the role of human capital in overcoming the crisis phenomena in economy by the example of modern Russia. Materials and method The issues related to study of the notion and sense of human capital and its role in development of entrepreneurial structures are viewed in the works by (Goedhuys and Sleuwaegen, 2016), (Meier et al., 2016), (Benzoni and Chyruk, 2015), (Lim et al., 2015), (Chechina, 2015), etc. Specifics of formation of innovational potential of enterprises and other economic systems (regional, national, global economy) is reflected in studies by such modern authors as (Karpenko et al., 2015), (Buchmann et al., 2015), (Vasin and Gamidullaeva, 2015), (Ablaev, 2015), (Sultanova, 2012), etc. Causal connections of economic growth and its meaning for modern economic systems is viewed in materials of research of such scientists as (Urbano and Aparicio, 2016), (Aparicio et al., 2016), (Popkova et al., 2016), (Popkova et al., 2013), etc. Peculiarities of functioning of economic systems in crisis and methods of overcoming of crisis are viewed in works of such authors as (Hieronymi, 2016), (Bohl et al., 2016), (Peric and Vitezic, 2016), (Capello et al., 2016), (Nadtochey, 2012), etc. The literature overview on the topic of the research showed that there is a lot of scientific information on separate aspects of this research--human capital, innovational potential, economic growth, and economic crisis. At that, there is no comprehensive idea of interconnection between these aspects of development of modern economic systems, which determines necessity for complex study of these phenomena--which is performed in this article. During the research, the authors use such scientific methods as modeling of development of socio-economic systems, factor analysis, analysis of causal connections, systemic and problem analysis, correlation analysis, synthesis, and graphic interpretation of information. Results Let us analyze dynamics and connection between development of Russian economy and innovational activity of Russian enterprises before, during, and after the recent financial crisis (2005-2014) (Fig. 1). As is seen from Fig. 1, before the 2008 crisis the Russian economy had been developing in a stable way, showing economic growth of 8% per year. …