In Russian historiography there are few articles investigating the problem of Japan’s economic development during the Tokugawa period from 1602 to 1867. However, both the Russian and Western researchers covering the long Tokugawa period of more than 250 years, paid little attention to the bakumatsu period from 1853 to 1868. In terms of political history, the bakumatsu years are significant for the ending of the Tokugawa’s military government. However, from the economic viewpoint, a wide range of problems had accumulated and they became more evident due to the opening of the Japanese market for international trade. This caused dramatic changes in the country’s economic development trends. This article presents a comprehensive review of the social and economic characteristics of Japan’s development during the bakumatsu period that triggered Japan’s economic recovery and entailed industrialization in the country.

The paper shows the need for the development and widespread use of sustainable development indicators for the regions. Drawing on global and Russia’s experience, the authors suggest perspective indicators of sustainability for Russian regions and analyze possible approaches to the elaboration of indicators for the regions on the basis of the adaptation of the World Bank adjusted net savings index and the UN Millennium Development Goals. Adequate accounting of indicators, which are currently undervalued or not considered, can lead to the revision of the mediumand long-term goals for regional development.

The paper considers one of the measures proposed by the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) to deregulate domestic gas market: abolition of lower boundary of gas prices for wholesale buyers, where two conditions inherent in gas market still remain: vertical structure of monopolist and the one export channel for pipeline gas. The author analyses the impact of proposed reforms on independent Russian gas companies competitiveness. The purpose is to provide domestic gas market reformation qualitative analysis and quantitative assessment of independent gas producers impact. As a result, the most likely implications of reforms are theoretically determined and quantitative assessment of their impact on the independent producer is provided.

The paper presents the analysis of pensioning as a social contract. The aim of research is to reveal the features of the Russian pension contract taking into account transformations of pension process in the 2000s. In accordance with the aims this article analyzes the contract bases of pension interactions. As a methodological basis the author applies the theory of social contracts, institutional model of the Principal-Agent and the McGuire-Olson theory of stationary bandit. The conducted research offers to consider pensioning as a special case of a social contract. It also identifies the general trend in changes of the Russian pension contract during the period since 2002 till the present period. The pension policy in 2002-2018 resulted in further strengthening of the state position as a stakeholder of the pension contract, decrease in the role of private structures in pensioning, replacement of pension accumulating with a distribution method, reduction in the value of personified interactions in the pension process and, on the contrary, increase in the role of common pension rules as an implicit basis of the pension contract.

Rapid spread of cryptocurrencies and the underlying technologies (blockchain) can transform the global financial system, as cryptocurrency has the potential to become a universal global currency. The article makes the conclusion concerning the timeliness and importance of cryptocurrency legitimization in Russia, which alongside the identified shortcomings contains significant competitive preferences for the banking industry, financial services market as well as for the state, drawing on quality blockchain technology mastering. The paper recommends to clarify the definition of electronic money in the Federal law «On National Payment System» under which a transaction with the cryptocurrency eliminates a third party intermediation. According to the authors, the spread of cryptocurrencies and the use of the blockchain technology will with a high degree of probability result in the transformation of the world monetary system due to the development of cryptoeconomy.

This paper focuses on the customer orientation and considers an evolution of this notion, its modern interpretation, and conceptual model of customer-centric business approach. The main goal is to identify and classify the attributes of customer-centric approach. The subject of our study is a customer-centric approach, and the objects are attributes of this approach. As a research method, we use a meta-analysis of academic papers addressing customer orientation and related concepts. The model developed contains a combination of three types of customer centricity attributes and metrics of business performance of customercentric companies. This model forms the basis for further study of customer-centric approach peculiarities in different industries, and for the evaluation of the impact of customer-centricity level on business performance.

The article focuses upon the problem of political affiliation in corporate governance. It aims to provide insights into theoretical and methodological aspects of the problem applied to the Russian corporate environment. The author evaluates the academic relevance of the problem in international studies, reviews the underpinning fundamental theories, provides an insight into the construct of political affiliation through the lens of corporate governance, outlines the methodology used in the studies of political affiliation to eventually assess the relevance of the problem to the Russian corporate environment.

The article presents the analysis of methodological issues and problems of the correlation between theory and reality in basic courses taught at the Faculty of Economics of Lomonosov Moscow State University. The paper provides the methodological approaches that can be used in conducting lectures and seminars, based on many years of experience; analyzes basic methods and forms that help convince students of the practical usefulness of the disciplines studied. The authors also offer methodological solutions that allow to explain to the students the ultimate goal of studying theoretical courses and encourage their involvement and interest in the learning process.