The article addresses problems related to harmonization of the financial market legislation (the banking sphere, the securities market and the insurance field) in countries of the Common Economic Space (the Republic of Belarus, the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation). The retrospective survey traces the evolution of integration processes in the CIS that resulted in the formation of the Customs Union and the Common Economic Space of the three countries thereby creating preconditions for establishment of a common financial market. The key trends and problems of the legislation harmonization are highlighted that are related to definition of minimum prudential requirements for the financial market players, issues of licensing their activities, protection of interests of investors, establishment of supernational regulation authorities.

The growing significance of the real estate taxation in Europe creates the need for presentation of property taxes in economy and taxation theory. In this article an attempt is made to analyze the role of real estate taxes. Here is an outline of this article. In the first part attention is paid to the economic and social consequences of the real estate taxation. In the second part, real estate taxation systems in the European Union countries are described and the incomes from property taxes are presented with special regard to real estate taxes. The analysis allows to draw a few general conclusions relating the immovable property taxation policy.

The economicscience todayfails to answer the question whether the terms “investment climate”and “investment attractiveness’ are identical in meaning. The time-based approach to the assessment of the investment climate of a region suggested by the author draws a clear distinction between the notions of investment attractiveness and investment climate. The investment attractiveness evaluation makes use of the investment potential and risk; the conclusion on the investment climate of a region is made based on the data about its investment attractiveness over a long-term period (10 years and more). Therefore, the investment climate of a region is regarded as its investment attractiveness in the dynamic aspect. The author’s time-based approach has been tried out on three regions - the Nizhny Novgorod Region, the Smolensk Region and the Republic of Buryatia. The information sources included statistical data for 2001-2012, statutory documents, news media. The evaluation of the investment climate in the regions exposed negative tendencies. The information on the Smolensk Region and Republic of Buryatia provide evidence of the end of the “linear growth”period of the investment attractiveness observed earlier in 2002-2007.The NizhnyNovgorod Region is so far holding its positions -investors are still hoping for a slight growth in the years to come. Even so, the investment risks are high for all the regions analyzed, and the investment climate can be characterized as weakly favorable. It may be assumed that the basic function describing the dynamics of the investment attractiveness (trend search) looks like a sine wave. However this assumption may be only proved by statistical data gathered over 20 or more years.

The activity of Russian sovereign wealth funds draws special attention of the international investment community due to the scale and social and economic significance of their investments. The need in the objective assessment of the investment efficiency of sovereign wealth funds arose as early as at the time of establishment in Russia of the first sovereign fund. This article presents the results of the analysis of investment policy statements of such funds, as well as an assessment of the investment efficiency of Russian sovereign wealth funds according to the criterion of investment returns maximization at an acceptable risk level. The analysis of the investment efficiency of the Russian Federation Stabilization Fund, the Reserve Fund and the National Welfare Fund was carried out by the author using state-of-the-art investment evaluation methods such as the investment portfolio benchmarking, VaR analysis. The analysis revealed a number of flaws in the current organizational structure of sovereign fund management as well as factors retarding the effective fund value growth. Based on the results obtained, a set of organizational and methodological measures was proposed to increase the investment efficiency of the Reserve Fund and the National Welfare Fund

Creation and development in the agro-industrial sector of verticallyintegrated systems such as «harvesting -processing - sale» require appropriate methods to assess the effectiveness of their operation both in terms of involved companies and needs for decision-making. The paper summarizes the theoretical and methodological approaches to the assessment of the economic efficiency of vertically integrated systems, describes the criteria for economic efficiency indicators and offers methodological tools for assessment.In the author’s opinion,a systematic set of indicators to assess the economic efficiency of integrated systems should be built on both specific indicators (which take into account the need for quantitative or qualitative expression, efficient use of resources, formation of the synergistic effect) and system indicators (covering the following areas: assessment spread within tier integration, organizations ensuring an efficient functioning of the vertically integrated system, type of integrated indicators, areas for a balanced system assessment of the efficiency).

The paper analyzes the development of the road infrastructure since the road infrastructure is an efficient instrument for interregional economic integration. The importance of investigation into these issues consists in the fact that the road infrastructure facilities contribute to the creation of a single economic space of the federal district and the country as a whole. The relevance of topic is determined by the necessity to overcome the fragmentation in the development of the national economy and to increase the efficiency of reproductive processes. Investigations of the authors allowed to identify among all types of infrastructure the most important one for interregional cooperation - the transport and communication infrastructure and especially road transport since it is the primary means to ensure the further development of economic links and optimization of production/ marketing chain. In addition, the road transport providing passenger and freight services both within the region and between the regions is directly connected to the enhancing of the quality of living standard of the population. The study established a stable correlation between the density of roads and gross regional product per capita. Moreover, the development of the road network largely leads to higher social and economic rates in the region. Further calculations show that the suggested values of road density in regions required to achieve the desired gross regional product (GRP) per capita, significantly exceed the road density stipulated in federal policy documents on the modernization and development of roads. The obtained results clearly show that there should be a revision of state policy in the field of road construction towards an increase in normative financing according to the expected level of social and economic development of the territory.

In 1970s of XX century, many prominent economists and environmentalists reflected about the limits of economic growth and opposed to the concept of economic growth the concept of sustainable harmonious economic development which implies that investment directions, orientation of scientific and technological revolution and exploitation of natural resources would be consistent with each other to strengthen the current and future potential to meet human needs. Meanwhile, the fact that in the 30s of XX century the United States undertook an unprecedented experiment for implementing the New Deal policy of FD Roosevelt seems to be completely overlooked. The New Deal, on the one hand, slowed the pace of economic recovery and economic growth in the U.S., but on the other hand, it resulted in reduction of social differentiation, increased the share of the middle class and contributed to sustainable development of the country. The social sphere in Russia is largely a relic of the old socialist system of etatism.. The existing social system in the country is a powerful barrier to economic development. Therefore, we are particularly interested in the experience of the United States.

In the context of the deteriorating economic situation in Russia in 2013-2014 with apparent decline in industrial output and volume of investments, the research in a wide range of issues related to the country’s economic policy becomes especially relevant. Financial policy is the most active area of economic policy and it constantly draws an extremely great interest among experts and researchers. Based on the theoretical study and critical analysis of practice, the paper reveals a number of contradictions between the declared goals of financial policy and the actual situation. It suggests to take measures to limit the growth in retail lending. The author concludes that fiscal policy needs to be reformed and tax move proposed by the Government of the Russian Federation does not meet global challenges. For example, it is crucial to revise VAT to eliminate problems of unmanaged refunds and tax on personal income; transition to a progressive scale of taxation is long overdue. In conclusion the author notes that there are still possibilities to use financial policy to build a new model of economic growth but we should not expect quick miraculous solutions: it is a long painstaking work to ensure financial stability as a basis for economic development.

In the Russian financial literature there is no unanimity of views on the conceptual apparatus. The notion of finance arose in the Russian financial science in the early XX century and was strongly influenced by the ideas of Marxism. Today most of the coursebooks continue to focus on this approach. Though in recent years in the scientific literature there is a movement attesting to the desire of the scientific community to change the established views. This is due to the fact that part of the conceptual apparatus is inconsistent with its generally accepted counterparts in the global financial theory. The paper proves the need to clarify the conceptual apparatus in finance theory in terms of its unification with the definitions given by foreign sources, in particular the definition of finance. The paper considers different views on the notion of finance and its functions including the author’s opinion.The author believes that the financial science in Russia must evolve to meet the financial globalization trends and factors which have an impact on science.

In the situation of the financial markets instability, more fierce competition in the banking sector, including international financial institutions, increasingly high complexity of bank transactions along with banks’ access to risk hedging tools, the task of establishing a risk management system by banks is gaining top priority. The banking activityis inseparable from taking risks.Therefore,the keymanagement objective of a credit institution is to define and maintain an optimum risk-return ratio. Though the general situation for development of the banking sector in Russia has been favorable in the recent years, the analysis of key indices that characterize risk exposure levels is not very encouraging. The main risks are still concentrated in the sphere of credit operations performed by commercial banks. To ensure the banking sector stability, not only competent risk management by credit institutions is required but also effective risk control mechanisms should be developed at the legislative and regulatory levels to set “rules of game” for commercial banks. The research paper gives a historical account of the subject in question, analyzes innovations in the legal regulation of the banking sector risks and proposes the most promising, according to the author, approaches to reformation of the risk management system.

The article addresses some aspects of finance, a sufficiently complicated economic category that is insufficiently developed in modern scientific literature. According to the author, the holistic view of the finance is closely related to the study of genetic and functional aspects of finance, their interdependence and interaction. The author made an attempt to look on the finance from the genetic point of view. The finance as an economic category is considered from different perspectives: as the object and subject of utilization (consumption), in terms of its nature, its role as a subject in social reproduction, as well as its functionality. As a synthetic economic category, the finance is connected with definite steps of the reproduction process at all levels of the economy, represents a complex of economic relations in terms of formation, distribution, re-distribution and use of centralized and decentralized funds as well as non-fund forms of accumulation in the process of establishment, distribution, re-distribution and use of the gross domestic product and the national income of the state.

The theoretical and practical aspects of using a treasury management system for servicing of local budgets are considered; the role of treasury bodies in routine management of local finances is defined. Current problems of treasury-based execution of local spending budgets are investigated and main deregulating factors affecting the procedure of cash execution of budgets are arranged in a system.Ways to improve budget funds management at the local level are proposed including: improvement of regulatory and software support of the budget process participants; improvement of a system of information exchange between Federal Treasury authorities, budget holders and operational financial bodies; replacement and retrofitting of outdated operating systems and the technological structure of information-analytical support of the Ukrainian State Communications Committee bodies; enhancement and extension of methods for controlling budget revenues and expenditures of budget holders and recipients; improvement of the practice of keeping account of local budget operations on budget resources.

Modern banking crisis in Kazakhstan’s economy is part of the global financial crisis. Liquidity problems which have emerged in second-tier Kazakh banks are mostly caused by changes in the situation on global financial markets and reduced availability of free financial resources. However, the ongoing national banking crisis has its roots not only in the substantial involvement of Kazakhstan’s banking system in global financial markets but also in severe structural deformations which it has undergone over the past few years. The work is the result of research conducted by the authors in 2009-2013 on the basis of practical materials of domestic and foreign organizations. The paper describes an efficient method which has been successfully tested in practice to exit from or prevent the global banking crisis; it also suggests some efficient management solutions. Clear and transparent evaluations and projections set out in the paper may be used by large financial institutions, analysts,commercial banks.Some elements of the proposed technique maybe applied to analyse complexprojects,etc.

Development of integration processes in the Customs Union (CU) of the Republic of Belarus, Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation at the present stage requires reshaping of customs administration in accordance with best practices and enforcement standards of the World Customs Organization. The legal institution of Authorized Economic Operator (AEO) is currently the subject of study of Russian and foreign researchers, due to the need to improve customs control through the use of modern tools and technologies designed for providing effective customs control and secure supply chain. The subject institution is based on introduced models of special customs simplifications (customs benefits) in exchange for compliance with economic operator specific requirements and conditions established by the customs legislation. In view of the forthcoming transformation of the Customs Union into the Eurasian EconomicUnion by2015,the AEO institution is acquiring new content and requires further study.To obtain the most objective data on the subject under examination the authors used general scientific methods, such as induction, deduction, analysis, synthesis. In addition, they used such particular scientific methods as comparative legal, historical legal, formal logic, system analysis, etc. In order to create an optimal balance between the rights and obligations of bona fide traders and the state represented by the customs authorities, the customs administration needs constant improvement. The authors exploring the AEO institution, come to the conclusion that its further development needs the improvement of special AEO status in terms of revising its administrative powers. This conclusion is based not only on the analysis of areas of concern related to the assignment of administrative and legal status to the AEO and its subsequent activities but also on the investigation into national AEO programs implemented by foreign customs administrations. The definition of the AEO legal institution is unquestionably has both theoretical and practical value; it constitutes a significant contribution to the theory of administrative law and customs law as well as to the practice of public administration.

The Russian insurance market requires qualitative,quantitative and structural changes.The solution of problems related to the development of financial markets in Russia as defined in the Long-Term Socio-Economic Development Forecast for the Russian Federation till 2030 by the Russian Ministry of Economic Development requires radical improvement of the national insurance system. This article is devoted to the investigation into this problem. The article contains the results of a research carried out by the author on the subject “Regulation of the Insurance Market”, commissioned by the Russian Federation Government to the Financial University within the framework of budget financing, using fundamental and applied research works of Russian and foreign specialists. The reported research is based on Russian insurance market statistical data, statutory documents, insurance supervision data, information of the Economic Development Ministry, the Emergency Ministry, the Federal Statistics Service, foreign sources. Methods of system analysis have been employed. The article assesses the current state of the domesticinsurance market,identifies the main goals of the insurance market development strategy till 2020 including: not solved problem of life insurance, creation of a mega-regulator, problems of the Russian insurance market integration into the world economy. The article reveals disparities in the Russian insurance market, complex problems of interaction with the consumers of insurance services, systemic problems of insurance companies and infrastructure. The findings of the research may be used by Russian state insurance supervisors,the corporate sector and analysts in building up the strategy and tactics of insurance companies to enhance competitiveness in the reorganization of the national insurance market.