In the context of implementing Russia’s National development goals (NDGs), an urgent task is to develop a system of indicators that would allow an objective assessment of the degree of their achievement at the regional level. The lack of a unified methodology not only complicates the comparative analysis of regions, but also hinders the identification of imbalances and the effective targeted distribution of resources. This article examines the authors’ target scenario “Internal Priority”, based on the previously developed set of key sustainability indicators. The regions of the Russian Federation were ranked and divided into clusters in order to characterize their strategy in achieving the NDGs, and most importantly, to assess the possibility of their implementation within the established deadline. The resulting ranking of regions shows that 16 regions can be classified as “advanced” in terms of fulfilling the NDGs, 43 as “developed”, and 26 as “developing”. Cluster analysis confirms the earlier conclusion that regions prioritizing economic development and living standards outperform, in terms of overall NDG attainment, those that prioritize social development or improvements in environmental performance. The analysis of sustainability indicators dynamics for 2021–2023 shows that progress is most prevalent within the NDG “Comfortable and safe living environment”, while no improvements are observed within “Environmental well-being” and “Technological leadership”. The comparison of electricity intensity of production across different clusters allows us to conclude that regions that have advanced further towards fulfilling the NDGs are more energy efficient. The results of the study can be used to monitor the implementation of the NDGs and make appropriate strategic decisions within the framework of sustainable development of Russian regions.

The subject of this article is the initial stage of strategic planning documents development in regions and municipalities of the Russian Federation, during which their names, implementation deadlines, structures, key indicators, etc. are determined. The purpose of the work is to develop a set of proposals, implementation of which will contribute to the strategic planning system streamlining and increase its efficiency. During the study, the author considers strategic planning documents, with an emphasis on similar documents adopted in the regions and municipalities, situated in the Central Federal District of the Russian Federation. The current state of most individual documents and the system as a whole, as a result of the specified parameters analysis, cannot be recognized as satisfying – there are multiple inaccuracies and errors that do not allow obtain declared results and synergistic effect. The directions for improving the strategic documents system presented in the work, cover their features that lie on the surface, but, at the same time, have the most significant impact not only on implementing these documents themselves, but also on the efficiency of the entire strategic planning system on the level of municipalities, regions and the country as a whole. Recommendations aimed at optimizing the system of strategic planning documents can be used in individual municipalities or regions of the Russian Federation, but they can bring the greatest effect if they are taken into account while forming laws and regulations at the federal level. The findings focus on the need to synchronize, establishing a single nomenclature and principles for forming strategic planning documents.

The energy sector plays a pivotal role in the economic development of any country, especially the one as large and resourceful as the Russian Federation. This paper examines the impact of fuel prices on electricity prices in Russia. We conduct an in-depth review of the academic literature to assess how various factors affect energy prices internationally. We then perform a cointegration test and estimate a vector autoregression (VAR), on the basis of which we construct impulse response functions. The analysis uses monthly data from January 2002 to February 2024 for four categories of electricity prices: households, non-industrial users, industrial users, and transportation. Engle–Granger cointegration tests show that the electricity price to households is significantly linked to all fuel types, whereas the prices for non-industrial users, industrial users, and transportation cointegrate with natural gas and coal in at least one specification with a constant or with a constant and a linear trend. The study contributes to the literature by filling a gap: although some Russian studies exist, we are not aware of comparable work that jointly covers a long period up to 2024, four delivery/consumer segments, and a unified VAR identification of the fuel-to-electricity price pass-through — this defines the novelty of the paper. We find that electricity prices tend to rise 1–2 months after fuel-cost shocks, but this effect almost completely dissipates within the following 1–2 months. This suggests that Russian economy is more resilient to such shocks, but it may also point to lower competition in the Russian electricity market and warrants further investigation.

The global transition to a knowledge-based economy implies a growing role of investment in long-term innovation projects characterized by a unique profile of expected cash flows. Such projects typically require a longer investment period and involve greater uncertainty regarding future cash flows. At the same time, the basic principles of financial theory imply high sensitivity of the present value of long-term investment projects to the rate of return required by investors. This article offers a theoretical model of choice between an innovative and a classical investment project that makes it possible to quantify the effect of interest rates on investment in innovative projects. Drawing on the proposed model, the author shows that innovation activity is primarily driven by real interest rates in the economy and by premia for systematic business risk. Practical implications of the approach include a quantitative assessment of the long-run growth rates required of innovation projects depending on macroeconomic regime and the parameters of the national innovation system. The findings demonstrate that, under Russian conditions of high real interest rates and elevated systematic risk, cash flows of innovation projects must grow by 10–25 percentage points faster than those of classical projects, depending on the time lag between R&D and commercialization, and as a result of such a high threshold a rational investor is almost always forced to prefer projects in traditional industries. In addition, given the direct relationship between return and risk, scaling up investment in innovation in Russia requires mechanisms for financing the riskiest innovation projects and reducing the volatility of the cost of capital and risk premia within the structure of interest rates.

This paper examines the determinants affecting the likelihood of early entrepreneurs’ transition to innovation using Global Entrepreneurship Monitor data from 2005–2018. The aim of the study is to determine the characteristics of individuals which influence both the probability of transition to entrepreneurship and the probability of innovation implementation. The paper systematizes the results of existing empirical studies and demonstrates the results that are robust to the addition of country-level control variables and the types of innovations implemented by entrepreneurs. As a modeling method, the authors apply Logistic regression with random effects. The analysis of the entire sample shows that innovation transitions are influenced by the same individual characteristics as entrepreneurial transitions except for risk taking, age, income and gender. At the same time, in the group of resource-oriented countries there is no significant correlation between the discovery of entrepreneurial opportunities, sufficient skills availability and the probability of transition to innovation. Identification of factors that influence the innovation activity of early entrepreneurs is necessary to modernize the existing systems of stimulating innovative entrepreneurship.

In just a few decades since gaining independence, Qatar has become a regional power and an important player among the countries of the Global South. Its international image has been enhanced by active use of ‘soft power’ technologies in its foreign policy, the development of which was financed through the redistribution of income from the state’s natural resources.

The study is based on the concept of ‘soft power’ offered by the American political scientist J. Nye. The purpose of this work is to identify the ‘soft power’ tools and technologies of public diplomacy that Qatar uses to increase its influence on the international arena; the subject of the study, in turn, is the activities of Qatar’s ‘soft power’ actors. The methodological basis of the study is an interdisciplinary approach combining elements of political economy, international relations theory and country analysis. The authors apply descriptive method, retrospective analysis, historical-genetic method, historical-topological analysis, content analysis of sources and documents, comparative analysis, and elements of statistical analysis. To quantify the effectiveness of implementing humanitarian directions of ‘soft power’ policy, the authors use the method of indexation and normalization of indicators. The scientific novelty consists in assessing the effectiveness of Qatar’s use of ‘soft power’ instruments in the context of its socio-economic development. The findings show that creating a strong national brand of the country with its positioning as a neutral and progressive leader in the Arab and Islamic world was facilitated by a combination of actions by ‘soft power’ actors in areas of sports, education, science, tourism and religious diplomacy, ensuring sustainable socio-economic development of Qatar at the present stage.

Modern system of healthcare and wellness sectors are facing rising client expectations, making service quality management a critically important issue. However, maintaining regulatory compliance is no longer sufficient; a holistic customer experience has become the principal source of competitive advantage, fostering trust, loyalty, and the likelihood of repeated choice of the organization. This study aims to develop and validate a multifactor systemic service quality management model that integrates normative compliance assessment with diagnostic evaluation of patient perceptions. As a result, there is no single, commonly accepted comprehensive system for assessing service quality that would simultaneously and in a comparable format take into account regulatory requirements, operational indicators, and the actual customer experience of patients and their families. The methodological framework is built on customer experience concepts, service excellence models, and ISO standards, supplemented by approaches such as CJM, VOC, and principles of person-centered service management. The empirical foundation comprises field studies conducted in healthcare and rehabilitation organizations, including hidden customer applications, rapid diagnostics based on checklists, and expert observation. The proposed SKUKS model incorporates four levels of service maturity (basic, reactive, proactive, excellence) and 129 criteria, grouped into blocks of strategy, service culture, communication, and outcomes. The findings demonstrate that the application of a multi-level diagnostic approach reveals hidden service deficiencies, allows for crossorganizational benchmarking, and supports the development of targeted improvement plans. In addition, integrating the SKUKS model into management systems allows to transform service from a supporting function into a strategic resource for the sustainable development of healthcare and wellness institutions.

In the context of sanctions, withdrawal of foreign brands, and declining purchasing power, the development of private labels (PLs) has become a strategic instrument for maintaining competitiveness among Russian retailers. The central challenge lies in the need to adapt PL portfolio strategies to new market conditions. The aim of this study is to identify and analyse the approaches to private label development used by retail chains and online retailers in Russia, assess their effectiveness, and determine future growth prospects. The methodological framework is based on an exploratory empirical approach including observation, an audit of twelve leading retail chains, and six expert interviews with PL development leaders in the retail sector. The author applies Content analysis to process the obtained data. The findings reveal that retailers build multi-layered PL portfolio strategies, combining PLs across price segments (economy, mid-range, premium) to manage risk, loyalty, and perceived quality. Sanctions have increased logistics costs and delivery time, stimulating at the same time supply localization and driving demand for economy- and mid-range PLs. Selling PLs to third parties and expanding online presence represent promising development directions, although their impact on retailer brand remains unclear. Key PL KPIs identified include sales share, profitability, quality, and loyalty. The originality and significance of the study lie in its systemic analysis of PL portfolio strategies and assessment of their impact on retailer positioning (accessibility, exclusivity). The results suggest that PLs strengthen retailer positioning, provided consistent quality and adaptation to external constraints, with future research avenues including quantitative assessment of consumer perceptions and examining the influence of retailer brand strength on PL architecture choices.

The article examines the issues of managing the interest rate risk of a commercial bank using the transfer price mechanism. A commercial bank is a type of financial intermediary that attracts resources of one urgency, offering settlement and savings services, and places them for other terms, providing loans and making investments. Accordingly, the bank takes interest rate risk and develops interest rate risk management tools – reducing the probability of risk realization, increasing net interest income and forming reserves in case of risk realization. Usually, the bank hedges part of the accepted interest rate risk using market instruments, and forms a reserve in the format of retained earnings for the non-hedged part of the risk. Such a reserve is usually accounted for at a separate accounting center – internal Treasury. A transfer pricing mechanism (system) is used to determine the amount of accepted risk and assign it to such an accounting center. The transfer pricing system (FTP – funds transfer pricing) is an internal system through which the Treasury rewards the attracting units and assigns a price for resources to hosting units (Deloitte, 2014). The organization of the FTP system in each bank is implemented in its own way and is part of the bank’s management system. In this article, the author attempts to identify the main issues of further development of the FTP in connection with the growing importance of interest rate risk as a factor in the capitalization of a bank and the insignificant amount of public information about the main instrument of its management. The article outlines the main current approaches to the use of transfer pricing in commercial banks. Drawing on the basic tools of transfer pricing system, the author offers his own position on the accounting of pricing mechanism taking into account the floating rate. The author also examines the impact of stress on changing the main approaches to the use of FTP.

The article examines the impact of industrial output and the share of investment in GDP on electricity consumption in the Unified Energy System of Russia. The scientific novelty of the paper lies in the fact that this analysis was carried out on time series taking into account the seasonal factor. The author uses the method of multivariate wavelet analysis including multiple and partial coherence of wavelets to analyze the relationship between the analyzed variables in different frequency and time ranges, partial phase difference and partial wavelet gain coefficient to assess the magnitude of the relationship. The diagram of partial coherence between electricity consumption and industrial output emphasizes only a short-term relationship between the seasonal time series of these variables, due to the correlation of the seasonal cycles of the studied series. The partial coherence diagram between electricity consumption and the share of investment in GDP shows a short-term relationship between the seasonal time series of these variables in a limited time interval and a medium-term relationship in the time period from 2017 to early 2021. Partial phase difference diagrams made it possible to determine which variable changes faster than other variable for a given value of the third indicator. The analysis of partial wavelet- gain coefficients (elasticities) showed a significant decrease in them from 2019 to the end of 2020 for all frequency ranges due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The results of the analysis of high-frequency cycles are of interest to short-term decision makers. The results obtained for medium and low-frequency cycles are of interest to those developing medium- and long-term plans.

This paper examines the economic aspects of implementing quantum communications and post-quantum cryptography — two advanced tools for securing communications in the context of the advent of quantum computers. The aim of the study is to predict the conditions under which their implementation will be economically feasible for end users in the financial sector. The hypothesis is that the use of quantum communications and postquantum cryptography as information security tools is of interest to financial institutions that own critical information infrastructure due to the potential to reduce the risk of economic losses from cybercrime. To prove this hypothesis, the author examined the place and role of quantum communications and post-quantum cryptography in a bank’s information security system, estimated the costs of transforming the infrastructure using a quantum component, and provided an economic assessment of the risks associated with the lack of a quantumlevel network security. The study is based on input data on component costs from market participants, as well as financial data on bank’s performance from open sources. Drawing on the comparative analysis of potential costs and risks, the author concludes that the lack of massive demand for quantum communications piloting services may be due to anticipated insufficient economic impact at the current stage of technological readiness. Demand could be increased through the use of deferred payment marketing and financial instruments. The author recommends to pay attention to scenarios for using quantum key distribution equipment in key data transmission nodes. These findings may be of interest to specialists working in the development and commercialization of emerging quantum communications industry in the Russian Federation.

With the increased availability of textual documents published by organizations, computational text analysis (CTA) opens new avenues for management and strategy research. However, while existing text processing techniques are well documented, approaches to measuring organizational and strategic constructs based on these techniques — that represent only a portion of measurement methodologies within CTA-based research — remain considerably less developed. Although the use of CTA-based methodologies offers new opportunities for researchers, the literature employing them remains scattered, with the limitations of such methodologies being infrequently discussed. In this regard, the authors aim to examine the evolution of this line of research, focusing explicitly on measure development practices within CTA-based methodologies. This study offers an overview of methodological progress and challenges in this area based on a critical review of over 20 specialized empirical research articles, and presents the typology of measure development approaches in CTAbased assessments of organizational and strategic constructs. The authors illustrate the use of the proposed typology by examining the literature that employs CTA to assess dynamic capabilities. The present work seeks to provide a useful methodological foundation for further study and enhancement of CTA-based measurement of organizational and strategic constructs, offering an accessible introduction to this interdisciplinary area for both management and strategy scholars as well as practitioners in the field.

The article examines the problem of assessing the scale of remote employment in Russia and the factors determining it. Remote employment is rarely observed in the results of even large-scale sample surveys conducted by Russian Federal State Statistical Service that prevents the use of traditional statistical instruments for its assessment and the study of development prospects. Given the low probability of this phenomenon detection, solving the identified problem becomes feasible through data balancing, which enables the use of a reduced dataset for modeling without significant information loss. Balancing reduces the volume of predominant observations to the size equal to the number of observations with the alternative employment status. We propose an approach based on Propensity Score Matching, which involves selecting similar observations according to their probability. The selection of characteristics for organizing subsamples with alternative values of remote employment features enables the development of classification models with optimal accuracy and recall characteristics compared to traditional models. This approach is applied to analyze remote employment based on Labor Force Survey data for 2023, ensuring the relevance of the obtained results. Logistic regression models built on balanced data made it possible to identify significant determinants of this new employment format: employment in information technology sector, possession of higher education, employment in the informal sector of the economy, and female gender. The methodology and research findings may be useful for addressing a wide range of tasks related to the analysis and modeling of socioeconomic processes and phenomena using substantially imbalanced datasets. Possible directions for further research on remote employment are presented.

This paper describes a new approach to assessing well-being as a multidimensional construct considering the structure of daily time allocation while controlling for basic sociodemographic characteristics of individuals. The article aims to confirm the relationship between well-being and decisions concerning time allocation. Using the data from the Sample Observation of Daily Time Use by the Population, the author applies multiple-indicators and multiple-causes modeling (MIMIC) to simultaneously estimate the unobserved wellbeing variable and its relationship with time use patterns. As the “big three” key indicators of well-being, the author considers material component (income) and human capital level (health status and educational attainment). The findings demonstrate that the highest factor loading in the unobserved variable of well-being at a young age belongs to income variable, while at an older age, the emphasis shifts towards health and education. The study proves the relationship between the construct of well-being and the allocation of time for various types of activities. The author argues that the connection of well-being with specific activities such as paid employment and household work is nonlinear (reverse U-shaped and U-shaped, respectively), making it possible to imply optimal time boundaries for each of the considered activity types. The proposed methodology can be adapted to consider less aggregated categories (for example, individuals from large families or single-parent families) and identify the ways of targeted regulatory influence to increase the level of well-being.

The Master’s program National Models of Sustainable Development of the Faculty of Economics of Lomonosov Moscow State University, opened in 2022, is gaining momentum. The article shows how students are involved in research process simultaneously with the study of the dynamics and content of sustainable development in Russia and other countries to prepare their master’s theses. In this process, a systemic approach is of great value, since it allows us to consider sustainable development in different areas, such as environmental, economic, technological and social. At the same time, students realize that sustainable development is implemented at the national level, but has a global nature, which presupposes international coordination and cooperation not only in comprehensive environmental protection, but also in targeting digital revolution to ensure humanitarian harmony at all levels of market civilization – an individual, a household, a business, a society, a state, and the world economy. Public and national interests also declare their place and role, designed to reveal and protect the potential of each country, which is proven by the topics of defended and prepared master’s theses. The uniqueness of the object of research and the structure of the Faculty of Economics allow us to act as scientific supervisors in preparing dissertations for professors and employees of many departments and laboratories, as well as for the authors of special courses from government, business and analytical organizations. The findings will be of great use for colleagues participating in the implementation of similar programs, and will help in choosing the topics of further scientific research for master’s students of our program in the field of sustainable development.