PAUL KRUGMAN: End This Depression Now! New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012, 272 pp.In 2012, the president of Estonia, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, and the noted economist Paul Krugman engaged in a lively discussion about solutions to the economic crisis and the ability of small and medium-size countries to implement them. This specific quarrel, though, was emblematic of a question that has occupied discussions among economists since the end of the First World War: "what is the problem?"John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich Hayek tried to answer this question. They created opposing concepts of macroeconomic policy. For Keynes, high unemployment is more dangerous. For Hayek, it was high inflation. This, in essence, is the crux of the opposition between the two bigger rival theories in economics from the 20th century.Paul Krugman's 2012 book End This Depression Now! is strongly connected to this discussion. Rooted in Keynesian theory, Krugman seeks to show how to solve the economic problems now plaguing much of the world. The recipe, unsurprisingly for those who are familiar with his writing, runs contrary to these presented in most works published on the subject. In fact, at the end of the book the author thanks all those who help him and other economists who promote the Keynesian view of the economy.Krugman swears that effective crisis remedies are based on demand stimulation, but because of a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the crisis, politicians and entrepreneurs are unable to reverse the economic slowdown. They do not want to accept non-mainstream ways of economic thinking. As a result, they cannot define the real causes of the economic "depression" or apply the appropriate remedies. In Krugman's opinion, the dogmatic use of economics designed for growth in times of crisis only exacerbates the difficulties. As a result the end of the crisis becomes ever more distant. In subsequent chapters, Krugman argues that his way of thinking can stimulate growth in the economy.First, he calls for a change in our way of thinking about the economy. Economics today, he argues, are far removed from the realities of the market and human behaviour. Politicians should focus not on rescuing companies but on rescuing people. In his opinion, the real costs of the crisis are much higher for individuals than financial institutions.Krugman's second argument is based on principles of state. Because the state is complementary to the market, if the market is inefficient the public administration has to take on the role of private entities not only when profit is possible but also anytime when potential losses are too high.Third, Krugman focuses on inflation and budgetary deficits. What he calls "main threads" commonly raised in public discourse are, according to him, a smokescreen. Presenting them as threads only expands on a misunderstanding of the nature of the crisis and raise unreasonable fears among society.Krugman writes that the aim of his book is to explain that the present economic problems are not the result of wrong decisions made in the past but rather the consequence of the actions of politicians who do not know what to do with a sinking economy. Even if in times of prosperity risky decisions were made by top bank management and politicians, the effects should have worn off by now. Krugman repeatedly provides support for his arguments through examples of economic processes and debunks explanations made by mainstream economists as being inconsistent with the facts. Whatever one makes of his arguments, Krugman's views are certainly worth reading.End This Depression Now! was written from a U.S. point of view, that is, as a huge country with a well-developed economy, a global currency, and more than 316 million potential customers in the domestic market alone. It goes without saying that this perspective is significantly different than that of Estonia, Latvia, Hungary or even Poland. …

End This Depression Now

We are living in a world that is changing rapidly and becoming more globalized. Especially the changes in the areas of science, technology and economy are becoming effective in the areas like education and health that are closely related to human life. We are experiencing a quick process named ’globalization’ that changes economic, social and political structures of the world and that no one can predict the outcome. These changes create new opportunities while opening new challenging areas. In order for countries to compete with each other, they need to be creative in all areas and they also need to be reformist to cope with domestic, national and global problems. In this study, the innovations in the area of education throughout the world will be examined and the place of Turkey compared to other countries in educational innovations will be analyzed. Also the concept of ‘Charter Schools’ as acceleration in educational innovation in the United State of America, who is the leader in terms of innovation in the World, will be analyzed. This study will also analyze the Charter Schools in the USA and discuss whether the concept can be implemented in Turkey and bring dynamism to education or increase the quality of education. While looking for the answers of these questions, the researcher conducted a literature review and also used the data he gathered while staying in the USA for nine years for pursuing his MA and PhD degrees.

Innovation and Education

The paper discusses options for tourist development of the Altai-Sayan region. For this purpose, a comparison is made between the current state of tourism and sustainable development of tourism. This makes it possible to propose five stages for the strategy of sustainable tourism development in the Altai-Sayan mountain region. The preservation of biodiversity and ethnic characteristics of the territory underlie the ethnoecological type of tourism, being the most consistent with the principles of sustainable development and promising in the studied mountain region. Functional zoning is considered as an important method for balancing and optimizing environmental management. It is proposed to use the landscape-adaptive principle as a basis for spatial planning of tourist service in the mountainous region. The spatial elements of the tourist network of the mountain region were analyzed. This made it possible to reveal the predominance of the linear structure in connection with the mountain-valley relief. There are also examples of radiation, dispersion, focal and linear-perpendicular structures of tourist networks. This allowed highlighting the priorities of tourist development for different territories. Functional zoning of the Altai-Sayan region with the identification of priorities in the development of the territory was proposed. This allowed identifying the spatial distribution of areas of intensive tourist use and areas of nature preservation and ecotourism. In addition, zones of weak economic development were identified with a predominance of tourist routes, as well as those of medium economic development with local tourist centers.

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Selection of strategic priorities for sustainable development of tourism in a mountain region: Concentration of tourist infrastructure or nature-oriented tourism

The current situation in the area of innovative development of the Russian economy is in bad condition and reveals pronounced tendencies for aggravation, especially in the areas of critical high production technologies. This creates strong social threats to national security. One of the main forming causes of the innovation crisis is the low management quality, including state regulation, which is done empirically. The existing regulatory framework is represented by unsystematic conglomerate of federal laws, decrees of the President of the Russian Federation and regulations of various levels. It does not contribute to the accelerated development of productive innovation activity. It seems necessary to synthesize a scientifically based mechanism for innovation implementation and legal regulations for its functioning.

Formation of the national economy of Russia in the context of state support of innovation actions

The article explores the main problems and features of one of the most relevant phenomena today - digital transformation, which implies fundamental changes in the activities of organizations based on the use of digital technologies. The paper reviews sources on the problems of building a digital economy and moving a business to the digital level. The purpose of this study is to identify the main difficulties for the restructuring of organizations' processes on a digital format, as well as the formation of the theoretical and conceptual foundations of digital business transformation in the face of uncertainty and variability of the modern business environment. Using the methods of analysis, generalization, comparison, synthesis, deduction, induction, the essence of digital transformation is studied, Russia's positions among other countries in terms of readiness for the digital economy are analyzed, problems and barriers that impede the process of digital transformation for Russian and foreign companies are formulated. Based on the use of a systematic approach, methods of scientific abstraction, economic modelling, the work identifies the main functional areas of change, presents a loop of digital business transformation that reflects its main stages, necessary components and changes, and describes key segments of new digital business models of companies. The results can be used to conduct further theoretical and methodological and practice-oriented research in the field of digital business transformation, and can also be used by design teams of organizations to analyze the problems of switching to a digital format, develop a digital transformation strategy and rebuild a business model.

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Problems of business processes transformation in the context of building digital economy

Evaluation of economic efficiency is one of the main tasks of a comprehensive economic analysis. But existing views on the very conceptof “economic efficiency” or “production efficiency” do not let us to accurately determine its meaning, role and place in the system of economic analysis of nowadays. The author of the article was faced with the task of developing an up-to-date definition of economic efficiency, taking into account current trends, factors, risks affecting the financial management of enterprises, on the basis of which it would be possible to develop a detailed system for its assessment. As a conclusion we have proposed a system that divides economic efficiency into internal and external parts, which are also divided into the following elements: the external efficiency consists of operational, investment, market and technological efficiency; internal — of strategic, systemic, financial and personnel efficiency. It should be taken into account that the division into these elements is very conditional due to their close correlation and interdependence. However, the particular definition and system can be used as a basis of a set of quantitative and qualitative indicators for each selected element, based on its role and place in the system of complex economic analysis.

The concept and essence of economic efficiency as one of the important tasks of economic analysis

The article presents various aspects of the development of methodological support for assessing the impact on the level and dynamics of the effectiveness of the organization of the two most important drivers — financial and operational levers. A multifactorial deterministic model of the formation of the combined effect is proposed to assess its impact on the return on equity and the effectiveness of using the financial leverage of a number of factors of the operational and financial activities of the enterprise. The use of the proposed modeling system using factor analysis methods allows us to measure and evaluate not only the current impact of the financing structure of the company’s assets and the structure of expenses for ordinary activities, but also to predict the impact of various factors on the next budget period, taking into account the options for sales dynamics, marginality, resource consumption, cost structure and financial policy of the company. 

Nataliya S. Plaskova

Papers

The concept and essence of economic efficiency as one of the important tasks of economic analysis

Methodological foundations of factor analysis of the combined effect of financial and operational leverage