This article examines industrial employment as an independent channel for the influence of economic structure on values. Unlike Inglehart and Welzel’s cultural theory of modernization, which focuses on GDP growth and existential security, we propose an additional, organizational-logical channel for the influence of economic change on cultural change, linked to the micro-contexts of the workplace. Using data from seven waves of the World Values ​ ​Survey (WVS) from 1981 to 2022, we reproduce C. Welzel’s secular values ​ ​index, supplementing it with indicators of the share of people employed in the industrial and manufacturing sectors. Fixed-effects regression models show a robust positive relationship between industrial employment and secular values, even after accounting for the logarithm of GDP per capita in PPP and the polyarchy index. No such relationship is found for emancipatory values. We interpret this as evidence that industrial micro-contexts primarily secularize power, but do not necessarily strengthen orientations toward autonomy. The sectoral structure of employment thus complements the standard emphasis on developmental level in explaining cultural differences.

The article presents structural analysis of interregional disparities in labor productivity levels and growth rates across Russia. The study aims to uncover structural foundations of spatial differentiation in labor productivity by comparing its static (levels) and dynamic (growth rates) aspects. It examines the roles of industrial specialization, resource allocation efficiency, and intra-industry disparities, and assesses the contribution of these factors to interregional income inequality. The analysis utilizes data on the subject of the Russian Federation for 2010—2023, broken down by economic activity (excluding extractive indust­ ries) and adjusted for regional price differentials. The shift-share analysis is employed to decompose the deviation of regional indicators from the national average into sectoral, localization, and regional components. The results reveal a persistent trend toward convergence in labor productivity levels but a growing divergence in growth rates. The factor of sectoral structure diversity contributed in the least to these processes, often promoting regional convergence. The second most influential factor was the concentration of production in regions, reflecting agglomeration effects: it fostered divergence in productivity levels but countered it in growth rates. The most significant influence came from regional differences in within-industry labor productivity. Combinations of shift-share decomposition components define distinct models of labor productivity level and growth formation in the regions. Simulation-based calculations assess the direction and magnitude of structural components’ impact on labor productivity growth in shaping interregional inequality in per capita GRP.

To date, there are dozens of studies examining various aspects of import dependence and import substitution. Research on cooperation between science and business is also widespread in contemporary economic literature. However, these topics have rarely been examined in relation to each other. This study aims to partially fill this gap. Based on data from a survey of about 2,000 Russian manufacturing companies, the article examines the relationship between import dependence and cooperation between science and business, and the latter’s contribution to changes in the dynamics of import use in 2019—2021. We have found that companies interacting with domestic science are characterized by a higher dependence on imports of intermediate goods, equipment, and technologies. At the same time, cooperation between science and business does not have a significant impact on the scale of imports used by companies. In general, for leading Russian companies, interaction with domestic science is often not an alternative but a supplement to the use of foreign innovative products, technologies, and competencies.

The article analyzes the state and dynamics of China’s service sector develop­ ment as a key factor in enhancing the country’s international competitiveness. The study examines the parameters of China’s participation in international trade in services, which still lags significantly behind trade in goods. Nevertheless, the country places great emphasis on trade in services for a range of strategic, economic, and political reasons. China’s WTO commitments stimulated reforms aimed at market liberalization and attracting foreign direct investment. The country’s current specialization is concentrated in sectors such as construction, ICT, and transport. However, China tries to transit towards the export of higher value-added services, especially digital ones. The authors conclude that China’s further progress in international trade in services will be determined by the suc­ cessful development of its financial and tourism sectors, as well as its ability to enhance competitiveness in high-tech segments.

The article assesses the returns on skills of IT specialists in Russian cities of different sizes. The empirical basis of the study consists of open data on job vacancies published on the HeadHunter platform in March—April 2025. The paper describes the data processing procedures, including the unification of skill descriptions and their transformation into discrete variables. The main research method is hedonic wage modeling in the labor market, which allows for estimating the impact of various factors on the salaries of information technology professionals. The econometric modeling employs a two-step OLS approach with Heckman correction and sequential inclusion of variables into the baseline specification. The results show that professional IT skills, personal characteristics, managerial skills, and employment in Moscow, the Moscow region, St. Petersburg, and cities located outside the Russian Federation have a statistically significant positive effect on IT specialists’ wages. Employment in cities with populations between 250 thousand and one million people, as well as social skills, have a significant negative effect. For professional IT skills, significant positive effects were identified in Moscow, the Moscow region, and St. Petersburg, indicating that the city effect remains even after accounting for cross-city differences in skill valuation. The main findings of the study are relevant for the development and implementation of education, regional, and migration policies aimed at fostering the training and mobility of highly qualified employees. The proposed approach to working with relatively small but easily accessible datasets can also be applied in expert HR analytics, for example, to identify differences among local labor markets.

The article presents an endeavour to distinguish, describe, and research a new class of economic effects, manifistating as deterioration of public and private welfare resulting from arising additional alternatives for rationally behaving economic actors. Due to existence of analogies in natural sciences and a patented invention based on a similar physical effect it is suggested to name this effect after its discoverer — Nikola Tesla. Particular cases of manifestation were reflected in economics and related sciences (Braess paradox, Downs—Thomson paradox, Dutch disease, etc.), however, globalization processes and erosion of supranational regulation provide for proliferation of this category in the foreseeable future. The significance and scale of energetics as a key area of economic activity turns it into an interesting research object in terms of Tesla effect prospects. Despite attempts of many nations to decrease energy dependence on external supplies, mineral fuels are still dominant goods being traded worldwide; while boosting alternative energy can cause unforeseeable outcomes. At a current stage of global economy and energetics development a number of countries have faced a variety of new challenges and opportunities. Although some alternatives and ways of developing national energy system seem to be attractive, some of them can cause Tesla effect on a global scale.

The continuation of the discussion on individualism and holism can have a more general scientific justification on the basis of multidisciplinary approach and achievements of modern philosophy and sociology. As a result of introducing the principle of methodological relativism into economic theory and distinguishing four relatively independent relativist doctrines, the article presents the peculiarities of relativist methodology, which is based on two fundamental statements about the impossibility of existence of objectively neutral criteria for choosing between conflicting alternatives and that these alternatives themselves arise in different cultural contexts. An important consequence of this approach is the new research results in the field of the theory of merit goods — that part of the economy where the state participates in financing the production of goods and services with social utility. A significant part of the work is devoted to new results: it is about proving the necessity to return to a strict dichotomy in the definition of public goods (according to Samuelson) and the introduction of a new category of “normative-public goods”, the properties of non-excludability and non-competitiveness of which are acquired in the process of purposeful actions of the state, in the extreme case of the policy of meritization of private goods and services. The new results also include the construction of an equilibrium model for merit goods, an important consequence of which is the justification of an alternative exegetics of the “Harberger triangle”, which became a theoretical proof of the rehabilitation of the category of budgetary subsidy.

In making decisions, people rely on a wide variety of information — qualitative and quantitative, objective and subjective, accurate and mistaken, scientific and non-scientific. About two decades ago, researchers identified a cluster of beliefs on how the economy works that differed markedly from how it is understood in economics. These beliefs appear to be remarkably consistent across countries and often lead to decisions that may reduce individual welfare. This set of ideas has come to be known as folk or naïve economics. The article provides an overview of this “theory” and presents empirical findings on its prevalence among certain groups in Russia — specifically, university students and senior government officials. The first group was surveyed using questionnaires, while the second one was examined through computer-assisted narrative analysis. The pilot studies suggest that the overall prevalence of naïve economic beliefs is relatively low, though this does not diminish the importance of improving economic education in the country.

The lack of complete and reliable information on the volume of food waste generated in the retail segment is still an urgent problem. The estimates available in the literature, both at the global level and for individual countries, often are not based on any methodology but on private opinion of experts. The article presents a quantitative assessment of the scale of food waste generation in retail trade in Russia. Methodologically, the estimates are based on data from the accounting and non-financial statements of the largest retail chains. In 2022, food waste in Russia accounted for about 3% of the retail turnover of food products, or about 530 billion rubles. Estimates of waste in physical terms and per capita turned out to be comparable with UNEP data for Russia and some European countries. In recent years, the reduction of food waste has become the goal of the sustainable development policy of the largest retail chains in Russia. The developed methodology for collecting information on food waste, which is based on open sources and available data, will allow tracking the current state of this problem, as well as including new retail chains in the research framework.

In Russia, more than half of the population has no savings and that reduces household financial resilience, especially in the face of economic shocks. There is a question whether improving financial literacy can help address this problem. Using the data from four waves of the All-Russian Household Survey on Consumer Finances, a fixed-effects panel regression revealed that financial literacy is associated with both the availability and the amount of household savings. However, this relationship is heterogeneous across socio-demographic groups and savings forms. For example, research confirms a positive correlation between higher levels of financial literacy and specific demographics, including male-headed households, urban residency, and higher income levels. Financial literacy is positively associated with both availability and the size of bank deposits while being unrelated to stocks or cash. Robustness checks confirm that the main results remain stable despite plausible changes to model specifications and sample modifications.