The Asian Automotive Industry: Assessing the Roles of State and Market in the Age of Global Competition

In the 1970s, automotive industries in developing economies were rebuked for their failure to set in motion the technological learning and industrial externalities that justified state promotion. However, in the 1990s, a number of Asian automotive industries throve with the rapid growth of their host economies. This paper assesses the current state and prospects of automotive industries in selected Asian countries with state-sponsored development programs—South Korea, Taiwan, China and India—and the ASEAN economies—Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. To date, Korea is the only developing economy in Asia with an indigenous auto-manufacturing base capable of competing in the international market. Given developments in the world industry, the catch-up task for other countries in the region will be more difficult.     

Economy of Russia’s Northern regions: Investment in fixed assets

This article discusses the features of the dynamics of investment in fixed assets in northern regions and the main factors of its rapid growth before the crisis and sharp decline in the crisis period. The contribution of individual regions to the growth rate of investment in the entire economy of the North is determined, and the territorial structure of investment by sectors and types of economic activity and the main sources of financing and changes in the structure of investment are investigated. An evaluation of the tendency towards investment and the investment attractiveness of northern regions are given.     

How to decrease the national poverty rate and encourage consumer demand in Russia

The main reasons for the high poverty rate and income differentiation among Russia??s population are analyzed, and indispensable governmental measures of income policy are substantiated that will help resolve this problem and encourage domestic consumer demand.     

Differentiation of the regions of Russia based on level of economic development

Assessments of the level of interregional differences by per capita GRP in current and constant prices are presented in the article. The tendencies of inequality in economic development of the regions of Russia in 1990–2013 have been studied.     

Relation of Uncertainty in Fluctuations of Energy Commodity Demand and Prices to Forecasting Timeframe

Several Russian and foreign forecasts of energy industry development have been analyzed that were made in various years for up to 20–25 years. The extent and type of temporal variations in uncertainty ranges of forecast indexes in Russia and worldwide have been studied. The indexes include fluctuations of energy commodity prices, electricity and fuel production and consumption, etc. The calculated data have been given. The relations of uncertainty ranges of different indexes to the change in the considered timeframe have been constructed.