Publications
The development of alternative energy is considered as one of the ways to reduce the environmental pollution and carbon dioxide emissions. In Russia, the current level of development of alternative energy is not high. Russia requires the regulatory mechanisms that would contribute to the development of this energy sector. The objective of the article is to analyze and determine the directions for improving state in"uence by creating regulatory mechanisms for the development of alternative energy. In this work, the following scienti!c research methods were used: data analysis, study of statistical data, and analysis of literary sources. The role of alternative energy has been determined since it helps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prevent climate change. In the world, this determines the development, considering international agreements and the implementation of the national policies of many states in this regard. Alternative energy has not been suf!ciently supported in Russia, many researchers have doubts about the effectiveness of supporting such projects. Prospects for further research are related to further study of the dynamics of the alternative energy development, as well as the study of government decisions in this area.
This paper analyses the ideational interaction underlying attempts at regional integration and cooperation in Eurasia. While the ideas and values of the European Union have been relatively well-studied within the theory of Europeanisation, the key concepts, ideas, values and principles driving Eurasian regionalism have remained out of the main focus of Western scholarship. This paper aims to shed more light on this ideational basis of Eurasian regionalism by unveiling the discourse developed in Russian scholarship and available only in Russian. Understanding interactions between institutions will always remain partial as long as the ideational interaction is not addressed. Such concepts as ‘integrative mentality’, as a segment of the wider category ‘foreign policy mentality’, and the theory of neo-Eurasianism have been incorporated into Russian political discourse and therefore affect public opinion through specific interpretation of economic, political and cultural processes in the EU’s near neighbourhood and the EU as an actor. The analysis presented in this paper indicates the development of new ideational competition, in addition to the well-documented geopolitical one. The paper also aspires to contribute to emerging research on public support to governmental strategic choices and self-legitimation of international organisations in Eurasia.
This article examines the evolution and potential of the water agenda of BRICS. The members of this international association of major countries of South America, Eurasia, Asia and Africa are rich in water resources and population. The development of water resources extends beyond their borders to projects in other countries through the activities of a major development institution, the New Development Bank of BRICS. Such conditions suggest some anticipation of a global and comprehensive view on the part of BRICS on the issues relating to water resources. However, the hypothesis of this article is opposite: despite the unique potential of the BRICS water strategy, it remains non-specific, focused on the lower common denominators for the member countries such as cleanliness, sanitation and water management. To account for this, the authors take the position that the bureaucratic logic of basic common interest downgrades strategic vision. This is reflected in the growing gap between the multifaceted nature of the issues related to water resources in the world and the narrowly specialized approach of BRICS association which perceives water de facto without its resource and global function. To study this, the authors analyze the water portfolios of the BRICS member countries and compare the national water agendas based on an analysis of policy documents. They then systematize water initiatives under the auspices of the BRICS and, finally, calculate virtual water flows and their structure between the BRICS countries using agricultural products trade as an example. The conducted analysis allows the authors to identify a wide gap between the current and potential water agenda of the BRICS. The authors then propose a number of initiatives that can create added value for the BRICS as an association both for its member countries and for developing countries facing water resource challenges. The authors assert that such a new approach, based on a profound understanding of the resource function of water as a commodity with global value, has all the potential to be implemented by BRICS.
The informal BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) is actively working to solve the most acute global problems. This is why opportunities for implementing the sustainable development goals (SDGs) at BRICS summits is a topic for urgent research. This article discusses the prospects for achieving SDG 17.11 by the least developed countries (LDCs) in the framework of mutual trade with BRICS. SDG 17.11, unlike other goals, was expected to be achieved in 2020, but World Trade Organization (WTO) estimates for 2018 showed that progress was too slow. Against the sharp drop in international trade in 2020 due to economic shutdowns, the implementation of this goal is especially high on the agenda. This article describes the current implementation of the SDG by BRICS. A general analysis of mutual trade between LDCs and BRICS shows the low involvement of least developed countries in trade with BRICS. The methodology for the study involves computations of two trade indices and the identification of new clusters of LDCs. The export propensity index and trade intensity index are calculated in order to identify the countries with the most promise to increase exports to BRICS. The authors selected 13 LDCs with prospects for trade development with BRICS—Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mozambique, Bangladesh, Guinea, Mauritania, Nepal, Tanzania, Zambia, Bhutan, Lesotho, Malawi and Solomon Islands. Among 34 other LDCs, the authors identify five clusters based on their economic structure, including the role played in their economies by official development assistance (ODA) and personal remittances. Clustering allows BRICS to provide targeted support to LDCs in order to increase their export potential through the most effective mechanisms for each economy.
ABSTRACT. The Regional Trade Agreements
(RTA) as a legal format of trade
between countries has been actively developed
within the last decades. Russian involvement
in RTAs until recently was modest.
However, after the EAEU creation in
2015, trade policies of the member countries
have changed. Setting up the RTAs
has become an important priority of the
EAEU’s common trade policy. In this study,
the assessment is made of the significance
for the Russian domestic policies of the already
signed and planned FTAs. The focus
of the methodology of the study lies in computations of three trade indices: export
significance index (suggested by authors
and based on the revealed comparative advantage
index), trade intensity index and
symmetric trade introversion index, which
were calculated for the totality of trade partners
of Russia for 2019 (193 countries) in
order to identify the most promising countries
to conclude new FTAs. Authors come
to a conclusion that the already signed Russian
RTAs and newly planned Russian common
FTAs on behalf of the EAEU have
a potential to generate trade. Another important
result of the study is that it provides
the list of the first-priority countries for the
new-coming FTAs for Russia and the EAEU
partners in terms of efficiency in generating
trade, that are - Egypt, Turkey, Algeria,
Republic of Korea and Mongolia. The authors
suggest to make similar calculations
for other countries to support the revealed
pattern.
The number of free trade agreements (FTA) in international trade is rapidly growing and it makes them the main tool for countries’ trade liberalization. Created in the 2015, the Eurasian economic union (EAEU), that has the competence of the customs union, also started actively building a network of FTAs. To date, four such preferential agreements and one non-preferential trade agreement are in force, and at least three other agreements are expected to be signed in 2020-2025.
Some specific features can be attributed to the emerging network that will impact the economic development of the EAEU Member States and will allow its partners to adapt their foreign trade policies accordingly. The geography of the EAEU agreements demonstrates the intention to create a wide network of FTA covering primarily the Eastern hemisphere, with the potential to extend it to all major regions. The EAEU partners are generally small States and not the strongest economies, and the content of FTA agreements is not yet as broad and deep as, for example, concluded by the EU. It is noteworthy that the system almost does not contain WTO-extra provisions. However, the EAEU is only at the beginning of building an FTA network that may change the EAEU position in the international trade system.
The main goal of the article is to track the distinct features of this new EAEU trade policy and to identify specifics and prospects for the emerging FTA network, based on the already concluded agreements and the coming ones.
In the last decades, the importance of trade in services in global trade flows has grown from strength to strength. This trend has stimulated the proliferation of bilateral and multilateral trade agreements aimed at ensuring equal and fair access for service providers to foreign markets. The Member States of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) are no exceptions to this global trend and strive to ensure free trade in services with foreign partners as a part of trade policies. This article analyzes theoretical and practical aspects of implementing the provisions on trade in services of the free trade agreement (FTA) between the EAEU and Vietnam, specifically applied to Russia and Vietnam. The results of the agreement’s implementation are instrumental in formulating the main contributions of the strategy that will increase the efficiency of future agreements on trade in services between the EAEU and foreign partners. The following strategy has already been applied to the example of service sector cooperation between Russia and Singapore. The emphasis of the study is quite universal, and the contributions of the strategy are applicable to other regional associations.
Monetary policy played a dominant role in ensuring macroeconomic stability in the advanced economies for two decades, from the mid-1980s to 2007, and appeared to be a very effective tool for smoothing economic cycles and maintaining price stability. After the global financial crisis of 2007-2009 the effectiveness of monetary policy was put under question, since it did not succeed in ensuring rapid economic recovery in the advanced economies despite massive use of both conventional and unconventional monetary tools. The paper addresses the factors which are responsible for the weakening of the monetary policy effectiveness including global disinflation, the Phillips curve flattening, the effective lower bound problem and the neutral real rate decline. Unconventional monetary policy tools, such as the “helicopter money”, targeted refinancing and other prospective tools, are analyzed. We critically assess recommendations of the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) as the most consistent heterodox theory. Based on the analysis, we draw conclusions about the possibility of monetary policy weakening in Russia in the foreseeable future and desirability of the implementation of the hybrid fiscal-monetary measures.
Issues of the efficiency of the energy industry are connected with the high cost of energy resources and the negative impact that generating energy has on the environment. The energy industry-related security of the state is closely associated with addressing the demand for domestic energy generation, including the security of such generation. Digitalization in the energy industry is aimed at solving these problems, allowing us to increase efficiency and subsequently improve the security of the electric energy industry. The purpose of this paper is to analyze and identify the directions for the development of digitalization in the energy industry in Russia as a direction of its overall development, ensuring the growth of energy efficiency and of the energy security of the state. It was determined that the “fourth energy transition” is currently taking place globally, being associated with the aim of increasing energy efficiency alongside the digitalization, decentralization, and decarbonisation of energy industry.
During the last decade, international trade has undergone many shocks of different kinds that have dramatically changed the nature of trade itself. Now international trade has come to a triple crossroads.
First, international trade had grown at a higher rate than GDP for many decades, a trend that was interrupted by the global financial and economic crisis in 2010. The recent study of the IMF (2016) cast doubt on whether trade would remain a driving engine of the world economy. It is also unclear how digital technologies might change the features of world trade. Second, the leading nations have responded to the crisis by imposing massive trade restrictions (that the G20 had initially managed to avoid). As a result, the multilateral system of trade regulation has been plunged into a deep crisis.
Finally, global governance in trade itself is at a crossroads, with nationalistic feelings on the rise and the threat looming of widening trade wars. Worse, it remains unclear whether this situation will stabilise any time soon.
The publication was carried out within the framework of a joint project of HSE University and the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences for the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR / Russia and the Republic of Indonesia. The project heads are Dr. Evgeny Kanaev (HSE University) and Dr. Dmitry Mosyakov (IOS RAS).
The global energy landscape is currently shaken by tectonic shifts.1 We witness
dramatic changes in energy geopolitics, the formation of the global system of energy
governance, a huge wave of massive technological innovations, global markets are
undergoing a radical transformation embracing a fast multiplication of new sources
of energy, newproducts, newproducers, and suppliers, coupled with the development
of the vast and sophisticated infrastructure and an increasing efficiency in energy use.
Each and every component of the system is touched upon by a wind of change that
brings about the contours of a new energy global order.
The world is currently undergoing an historic energy transition, driven by increasingly stringent decarbonisation policies and rapid advances in low-carbon technologies. The large-scale shift to low-carbon energy is disrupting the global energy system, impacting whole economies, and changing the political dynamics within and between countries. This open access book, written by leading energy scholars, examines the economic and geopolitical implications of the global energy transition, from both regional and thematic perspectives. The first part of the book addresses the geopolitical implications in the world’s main energy-producing and energy-consuming regions, while the second presents in-depth case studies on selected issues, ranging from the geopolitics of renewable energy, to the mineral foundations of the global energy transformation, to governance issues in connection with the changing global energy order. Given its scope, the book will appeal to researchers in energy, climate change and international relations, as well as to professionals working in the energy industry.
Although Russia and Indonesia have ample reasons to make their cooperation comprehensive, nuanced and multi-dimensional, practice routinely falls short of expectations. Notable impediments include a large distance magnified by inefficient infrastructure, as well as lack of institutional and technological interdependence and weak people-to-people contacts, and most importantly, insufficient stimuli to expand ties beyond their present scope. Revealingly, practice demonstrated that market forces alone cannot make the Russia-Indonesia cooperation really deep, close, multi-dimensional and, by implication, strategically-oriented. Accounting for Moscow’s and Jakarta’s plans to elevate their relations to the level of Strategic Partnership, a new instrument to make them relations exactly what their forthcoming status suggests is needed.
Membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and participation in free trade agreements (FTAs) are important instruments for governments to realize national economic interests. The Republic of Korea has been particularly successful in doing so. As the experience of Korea shows, a trade policy mix between multilateral liberalization under the WTO and preferential liberalization through FTAs allows the government to optimally balance national interests and strive for higher levels of social welfare and economic effectiveness, while simultaneously protecting national industries. However, such results seem to be possible only if national economic interests are clearly defined and are synchronized with a country’s goals regarding WTO membership and its strategy for FTAs. During recent decades, Korea has practiced an active long-term planning of trade policy so that trade benefits are not excessively concentrated in a narrow range of trade actors and are distributed more evenly in society. This meant appropriate balancing of liberalization and protection measures, reinforced by special support programmes that neutralized the negative impact of higher market openness. In this article, Korea’s strategy regarding trade policy is analyzed, including the reasons Korea pursued an FTA-centric policy and the benefits it obtained in addition to those it obtained from WTO membership.
The article examines the current transformation of ASEAN−UK foreign economic cooperation pattern in the context of digitalization of the global economy. Brexit as a manifestation of the European integration crisis has catalyzed diversification of Britain’s foreign trade in services. Southeast Asian nations are becoming the UK’s priority partner in this area. In these circumstances, parties have to choose the model of their future trade agreement and the degree of trade liberalization.
The article presents the results of a study aimed at identifying universities’ resources and competencies interrelated with their export activities, and at analyzing these interrelations. To achieve this purpose, the indicators of university activities over a four-year period and the dynamics of their changes are analysed. With the help of panel data analysis methods, the relationships between quantitative indicators characterizing the resources, universities’ competencies, and the results of their export activities are estimated. The annual performance indicators of 589 Russian universities are analyzed through four academic years – from the 2013/14 up to the 2016/17. Over the indicated period, 74 % of the universities included in the sample increased the number of foreign students, this growth in most cases being unstable if taken year by year. The universities with positive changes in the number of foreign students show the following resources and competencies: the development of incoming students’ international academic mobility; international teaching staff and a high level of their qualifications; partnership with enterprises for organizing student practice; international cooperation in research. The results of the study may be of interest for universities planning to develop the export of educational services and making decisions on the implementation of measures aimed at attracting foreign students. The paper analyzes the performance of universities having the necessary data for four years in open access. For further research, the list of analyzed indicators can be expanded, with the values of indicators considered for a longer period of time.