The systemic economic theory is used in the paper to formulate and substantiate requirements for the mesoeconomy, a sphere of the economy that holds an intermediate position between the national economy and the microeconomic level. A structural performance model of the mesoeconomy as the economy subsystem is built; interrelations between the regional economy and other regional and economic systems are investigated; conditions for harmonious functioning and sustainable development of society at the macro- and mesoeconomic levels are specified. 

The international experience shows that venture capital investments are an effective way to develop scientific and technological progress and an essential element of national innovation systems. The importance of venture sector development is proved by the fact that most of the breakthrough innovations in high-tech industries are made by venture capital investments. Therefore, many developing countries, recognizing the importance of innovations, move towards supporting the process of commercialization of technological achievements. The Russian venture capital market has a number of features that distinguish it from the venture capital industry of other countries. However, the experience in the formation and development of the venture capital market in the U.S., Europe and Asia is still relevant for modern Russia. The international experience in establishing venture systems to fund innovations should be taken into account when forming the venture capital industry in Russia, with regard for peculiarities of the Russian economy, as well as based on the purposes in the area of innovation. The venture capital industry in developed countries is supported both at the legislative level and by the formation of a system of effective instruments of direct and indirect methods for stimulation of venture capital financing. The author investigated trends in development of venture systems in the world and Russia, found out specifics of formation of an effective venture capital industry in the USA, Europe and Asia and perspectives for innovative development in Russia.

Nowadays, a company cannot survive or develop successfully without target-oriented organizational changes.

Changes may be classified as technological, product-line, managerial (structural) and cultural. The organizational development is one of the tools of organizational changes. There are multiple definitions of the term «organizational development». In a general sense it may be understood as a positive qualitative change.

At present, researchers are considering the following basic models of company development: planned changes (Kurt Lewin), life cycle (L.  Greiner and I. Adizes), punctuated equilibria (T.  Romanelli, M. Tushman, B.  Newman), developing changes (K. Weick, R. Quinn), self-organization (Prigogine and G. Nicolis). The proposed theories lay emphasis on the fact that a modern company should be, above all, flexible and intent on changes. To this end, the personnel should be encouraged to generate ideas and make decisions in a situation of uncertainty. Therefore, a concept of intellectual capital management is proposed.

The general algorithm of company development through the human capital formation proposed in the paper includes six main steps. The algorithm can be tailored to suit specific kinds of development, for instance, the company growth.

Viewed from the above, the company development management based on the intellectual capital is gaining popularity. Moreover, the intellectual capital of an individual or a group of people is becoming the key factor to enable efficient operation and development of a company. 

The article analyzes the influence of the WTO regulation function on energy markets in general. The WTO system does not include any specific agreement on energy trading for historical reasons. However, with new WTO members, who export hydrocarbons, including Russia, the regulation of energy sales is becoming more important. The analysis of theoretical papers and the WTO legislation identifies WTO rules that indirectly influence the global energy market. Hence, the analysis in the article is focused on consequences of Russia’s WTO accession in different aspects of the energy dialogue with the EU. As a result, the author demonstrates problematic issues in the Russia-EU energy cooperation and the way the WTO solves or complicates them for Russia. Moreover, there is a comprehensive analysis of current and potential disputes between Russia and the EU, and prospects of their settlement by means of a special WTO Dispute Settlement Body. 

The development of national innovation system is influenced by the number of internal and external factors that should be taken into account in government policy aimed at encouraging and supporting innovation. The paper reports the analysis of macroeconomic factors that determine the development potential of the innovation system in Russia. These factors include: general economic indicators, individual sector performance, parameters of fixed production assets, labor and investment resources. The evaluation of multiple conditions shows that extensive factors of economic development may be used in the short term as their limitations do not allow using them in the long term. Therefore, it is necessary to accumulate factors of intensive development through innovation. A comprehensive analysis of the impact of macroeconomic factors on the functioning of national innovation system permits to produce recommendations on how to adjust the government policy in order to create favorable conditions for innovation activities. 

The development of national innovation system is influenced by the number of internal and external factors that should be taken into account in government policy aimed at encouraging and supporting innovation. The paper reports the analysis of macroeconomic factors that determine the development potential of the innovation system in Russia. These factors include: general economic indicators, individual sector performance, parameters of fixed production assets, labor and investment resources. The evaluation of multiple conditions shows that extensive factors of economic development may be used in the short term as their limitations do not allow using them in the long term. Therefore, it is necessary to accumulate factors of intensive development through innovation. A comprehensive analysis of the impact of macroeconomic factors on the functioning of national innovation system permits to produce recommendations on how to adjust the government policy in order to create favorable conditions for innovation activities. 

Since the current budget reform proclaimed the transition from cost management to the management of results as the main objective, there arises a necessity to reform institutions of the public sector, including the improvement of the financial mechanism of the budgetary institution operation to make it consistent with the present market requirements.

The paper considers the historical aspects of the formation and evolution of the financial mechanism of the budgetary institution operation, describes its contents before and after the adoption of the Federal Law No. 83- FZ «On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation to Improve the Legal Status of Public (Municipal) Institutions» dated May 8, 2010. The paper also identifies areas for improving the financial mechanism of the budgetary institution operation: arguments in favor of using the government (municipal) task assignment as the main tool to regulate the volume and quality of public (municipal) services are given along with substantiating the necessity to improve the mechanism for granting subsidies from the Russian Federation budget system and to use normative per capita funding of public (municipal) services.

The reasons for insolvency of municipal unitary enterprises providing housing and communal services (HCS MUE) and their implications for the country and other economic agents are investigated; the necessity and feasibility of including HCS enterprises into a special category of debtors in carrying out bankruptcy procedures are substantiated; the prospects of applying the corporate social responsibility to solving HCS problems are analyzed in the framework of the public-private and municipal-private partnership. One of the principal statutory tasks of a municipal government is to enable the financial stability of HCS MUEs that provide socially significant and vitally important services. At present, however, the above problem in the Russian Federation is not handled properly, as evidenced by the increasing physical depreciation of fixed assets and municipal infrastructure of local communities, as well as by the widespread bankruptcy of municipal.HCS enterprises. 

The research is devoted to the development of measures aimed at improving the organizational and economic mechanism of commercial activities of medium- and large-scale commercial organizations in Ukraine. The author’s approach involves improving the management of complex business processes, optimizing the organizational structure and enhancement of the work motivation efficiency. The testing of the improvement measures took place at the sales network of Lvivkholod LLC (Lvov). It was demonstrated that the above retail organization had increased its competitiveness by improving financial and economic indicators as well as criteria of the organizational structure. 

The statutory regulation of a special legal status area is an indispensable precondition for its effective functioning. The relevance of the topic arises from the necessity of timely updating of the legal framework to the changing external and internal economic environment. The subject addressed is important in terms of the priority put by the Russian Federation government policy on the development and application of new legal mechanisms to attract investments in the economic sphere. It is particularly relevant for improving the Far East investment climate. The article analyzes the legal and regulatory system of special economic zones (SEZ) in the Russian Federation during 2005–2014. It reflects measures implemented by the SEZ authorities to improve the SEZ efficiency and manageability through updating the current legislation. The article reflects the principal directions of the public policy aimed at the improvement of the special economic zone regime in the Russian Federation. It suggests further measures to enhance the attractiveness of the model of their development in the Far East by making changes in individual legislative standards. The proposed measures will allow the authorities to differentiate and improve the SEZ regulation mechanism. It will help extend its application to cover the regional level. 

The efficiency of the system of inter-budget relations in any country largely depends on how it conforms to fundamental principles of the fiscal federalism that were given a deep theoretical insight by foreign and Russian economists. The construction of the fiscal federalism model in Russia has been going at a slack pace due to objective difficulties of its implementation in the huge country with unevenly developed areas. At the same time, problems and contradictions that have by now accumulated in the practice of inter-budget relations have serious social and economic implications. The conclusion made in the paper substantiates the necessity of improving the current mechanism of inter-budget transfers, particularly, increasing the proportion of unconditioned transfers and reforming the procedure for granting federal subsidies. The authors propose some measures for overcoming the present crisis of sub-national budgets and ways to strengthen the tax potential of the Russian Federation. 

Viewed as the center of economic and social innovations, the «third sector» of the economy occupies a substantial niche in the current all-round development of the country.

The need of reforming the financial relations of nonprofit organizations has been subject to a long-term discussion. The paper describes the principles of NPO finance organization, analyzes issues of the NPO development in the modern environment, NPO relationships with budgets of different levels as well as specifics of the government support of socially-oriented nonprofit organizations.

The paper analyzes the legal basis for formation and replenishment of the NPO endowment, types of NPO activities allowing the endowment raising, requirements for nonprofit organizations as endowment owners. Along with that the principal areas of the endowment application are defined. 

The experience of studying the materials of foreign IPO procedures shows that the initial public offering of shares is usually carried out under favorable economic conditions. In Kazakhstan, the «People’s IPO» was also conducted in the situation of the economic growth. Large-scale provision of private investors and, primarily, public at large with the opportunity to become owners of the largest companies’ equities gives a fresh impetus to the development of the economy.

The article focuses on the specifics of the IPO as an investment instrument taking into account foreign experience in share floating, achievements and challenges, the first IPO program in Kazakhstan by an example of «KazTransOil», its difference from similar programs in other countries.

The research into practical materials of programs similar to the «People’s IPO» program implemented in several countries was carried out by the authors in 2011–2013 using the comparative analysis method.

The results of floating shares in «KazTransOil» JSC, the largest pipeline operator in Kazakhstan, have demonstrated a good financial awareness of the Kazakhstan population as well as its high level of interest in investing in shares and pension funds, which was evidenced by the 2.1 times excess of demand over supply. A significant number of applications received from citizens exceeded the maximum allowable amount per individual.

These facts show that a certain part of the population prefers investing in shares, which is more risky compared with bank deposits but promises higher incomes in the case of success.

The results of the first experience with floating shares in KazTransOil JSC may be considered successful for the issuer — the IPO covered nearly 35 thousand applications for shares from private investors totaling 27.9 billion Tenge.

The success of the «People’s IPO» of the «KazTransOil» JSC shares indicates a high level of «elaboration», the viability of the national IPO program of Kazakhstani economy flagship stocks due to its conceptual simplicity, transparency and efficiency.

Further implementation of the «People’s IPO» Program allows issuers, the largest domestic companies, to continue the formation of the internal loan market to ensure their business development as well as provides the increase of Kazakhstani people’s assets and the development of financial literacy of the population in the country. 

The problem of building an automatic teller machine (ATM) network of a commercial bank consists of both identifying analytical indicators of its efficiency, and developing its construction model. The paper describes the ATM network performance indicators and specifies the prime costs. Qualitative indicators showing the bank’s image growth through an extensive ATM network available are described. Methods of determining certain parameter values and processing operations to calculate integral indicator values which reflect the positive and negative characteristics of a particular place are presented. The construction of a mathematical model of multi-objective optimization of a commercial bank ATM network formation is described, which model determines both the optimum amount of ATMs and their optimum distribution by particular places taking into account the estimated budget. To determine the most efficient allocation of ATMs, the multiobjective optimization model is built by applying the principles of goal programming. Goal programming mechanisms allow non-rigid accounting of the budget limits; the second criterion ensures minimization of the deviation. The model version described in the paper allows distribution of ATMs over all regions under consideration. Thus, the author’s model contributes to efficient preparation and adjustment of a commercial bank’s plan to develop an ATM network and provides an opportunity to determine the optimal number of ATMs and their best allocation in places of interest with account for an expected budget.