The essence of Russia’s ongoing social and economic transformation is to be found in the modernization of the Russian economy and its changeover from an industrial system to the postindustrial model. This presents a well-known economic problem that Western countries resolved in the 1970s and 1980s. And like the West did previously, we are solving this task through a transformation crisis.

The problem is that Russia entered its postindustrial transformation much later than the West. Thus, we must ensure an accelerated level of modernization in order to reduce the gap between the levels of development in Russia and the world’s most technologically advanced countries. In fact, we must choose an effective model of a postindustrial market and produce a set of state policy instruments that will ensure its proper functioning.

Economic theory offers some well-known recipes for accelerated modernization. Back in the middle of the 19th century, John Stuart Mill spelt out the key principles of resolving the tasks of modernization. With reference to Russia, these principles involve promoting the protection of ownership (against governmental arbitrariness, in part), human development and borrowing of foreign finance.

Russian Finance Minister Sergei Witte, who developed these ideas at the dawn of the 20th century, focused intensively on stimulating the transformation of financial savings into investment. To this end, he proposed to “lubricate” business activity among the general population and to bring in foreign investment. He insisted on lifting a prohibition for establishing joint-stock companies with foreign stakes, as well as on allowing foreigners to own land in Russia. Also, Witte urged the regional and local authorities to stop putting up obstacles to business operations.

It might seem that we can draw on our own experience of modernization – which witnessed the most rapid industrialization in the first half of the 20th century – while we develop a market strategy; our politicians (especially from the left) and even some economists who advocate the mobilization economic model often support such a stance.

And yet the content analysis of postindustrial economy makes one skeptical of ideas that originated in the traditions of an agrarian-industrial society. Postindustrial society witnesses the rapidly growing technologies and, consequently, growing consumer demand and increasing opportunities to meet it. This predetermines much uncertainty around the tendencies of, and prospects for economic and technological development, not to mention vague economic forecasts for the future. Hence, it is impossible to stipulate clear priorities for each industry. Moreover, any industrial branch or economic sector may become priority in certain situations. In contrast to the era of industrialization, concentrated financial resources may fail to deliver the desired effect. That is why a policy of stimulating adaptive opportunities of economic agents and their ability to grasp rapidly changing demand, as well as the ability to react promptly to those changes, falls into the limelight as opposed to resource concentration. As a result, priority is shifting to the sectors related to human development. It is the achievements in human development that create the necessary conditions for the postindustrial market.

Discussions of a model for such a transformation began at the 9th Economic Forum in St. Petersburg in June 2005, where an approach based on the methodological principles of historicism was recommended. It specified an attitude of dirigisme and liberalism from the perspective of special features or stage of development of the labor forces. However, this type of formulating is too abstract and generalized. What is really needed is a detailed set of principles and actions that will enable the country to resolve the tasks it now faces.

STRATEGY AND RISKS OF POSTINDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT

Elaborating a strategy for Russia’s postindustrial market involves a clear identification of the strengths and weaknesses of today’s economic and political processes in the nation, together with an analysis of all internal and external factors that determine this country’s development.

1. Political and macroeconomic stability has become a major prerequisite for the rejuvenation of economic growth and plays a decisive role for continued rapid growth. It is foolish to believe that stability once acquired in the past will continue long into the future. Russia’s economic situation remains rather vulnerable to shocks and the authorities must continually work to ensure that the situation does not get out of hand.

The runaway prices of crude oil do not guarantee macroeconomic stability. On the one hand, the possibility of a drop in oil prices and the resultant destabilization of the budget, not to mention the entire economy, is always a threat. The longer oil prices remain high, the more painful a later adaptation to change will be. On the other hand, a favorable market situation may lead to destabilization if it lasts too long because it may provoke populist decisions that will trigger budgetary spending beyond the accumulation of revenues. In other cases, destabilization may arise from a debt crisis on foreign commercial liabilities, a crisis on the market of consumer loans, or instability in ownership relations.

A toughening of the government’s administrative levers expands the opportunities for stimulating investment activity, but it is important to ensure that newly created institutions do not exceed the government’s administrative resources.

To prevent a crisis, Russia needs conservative budget policies that depend only on resources earned through an increase of labor productivity, a policy of low and flat taxes, and careful monetary policies that curb the increase of the ruble’s exchange rate.

2. Human capital. The postindustrial era places emphasis on the development of man and his creative capabilities as a crucial factor in rapid social and economic growth. This includes, most importantly, the provision of respectable healthcare and education, together with the reform of the national pension system, science and other social spheres. Human capital can play a role similar to that of the railroads during industrialization, that is, it will serve as an engine that powers demand for the development of other industries. Russia has an inherent advantage in this sphere – its human capital is much more advanced than in other countries that have a similar level of GDP per capita. However, the situation remains highly unstable.

The widespread conviction that Russia enjoys a sizable edge over other countries in terms of human resources is only partly true (as shown in Table 1, which reflects Russia’s rankings along separate indexes of economic and social progress). The situation still looks quite acceptable in the field of education, but the status of our healthcare is disastrous. In the meantime, the human potential index is strongly intertwined with per capita GDP. This means that Russia’s edge is not particularly impressive and may decrease significantly unless dramatic measures are urgently taken.

This brings up two possible versions of Russia’s future development:

• the economy will be upgraded to match the level of human potential, i.e. the human potential will be used to speed up a structural and economic transformation;
• Russia’s human resources will degrade to a level witnessed in medium-developed countries.

It would be a mistake to claim that the current crisis in the social sphere was borne out of the crisis of the Soviet system. This is only partially true, since today’s developments reflect a crisis of the industrial system as a whole. The current model of a social state – i.e., a state that spends significant resources on the well-being and development of its human potential – no longer works. This model emerged in a radically different demographic and social situation marked by a growing population that was predominantly rural and without a system of social security. All the available models of the social state took root in the industrial past, at the end of the 19th century. The demographic scenario was also dramatically different, as there were more young people than elderly, thus healthcare and other public services were financed by way of deductions from the former’s earnings. But today, as the demand for retirement benefits for a rapidly aging population increases incessantly, a new and vastly different model of the social state should be devised.

A search for the best possible model of human capital development can be based on existing experience to only a small degree since the models that match today’s challenges simply do not exist. The country that proves able to build such a modern and efficacious system will receive huge advantages in the postindustrial world.

It is also important to understand that the modernization of institutions (rules of the game) has a much greater role than their mere financing. Pouring more money into the social sectors in the absence of their comprehensive institutional reforms does not produce lasting value. On the contrary, it can facilitate the conservation of outdated methods that have more than once shown their inefficiency.

It is important to concentrate our intellectual and political efforts on precisely these issues and to make this vector of development an unconditional priority for the government, both from the point of view of political attention, as well as through the concentration of budgetary resources. Such a crucial step forward can be found in the national projects formulated by President Vladimir Putin’s administration.

3. Taxation policy. Over the past few years, Russia has made decisive steps to organize its tax system. Taxes were reduced considerably and their collection improved markedly as a result. Actually, the rate of non-payment of taxes fell practically to zero. Introduction of flat taxes (primarily the income tax) signaled an important step toward forming a modern tax system.

Three fundamentally important facts should be taken into account before further developments are made in this sector.

First, Russia’s taxation traditions reveal big differences from the European tradition. In the West, a tax is something that people are ready (or are expected) to pay to the state for the services it provides to society. Correspondingly, this duty may increase or decrease depending on what volume of services the citizens expect from their government, as well as the quality of the services provided.

Russia has a totally different tradition in the field of taxes, which dates back to some degree to the times of Tatar-Mongol rule. Russians interpret taxes as a fee to the “Tatar khan” (or government) for his abstaining from intrusions into people’s business during the year. Any talk of services is irrelevant in this case. People want only one service from the government, and this is to leave them alone; they can only bargain about the price of abstaining. That is why debates on the size of taxes make little sense. Naturally, the smaller the tax the better, since only one service is at stake and it does not depend on the price. In other words, a tax increase cannot be the subject of a social contract.

Second, reducing taxes makes very little sense now, as most of the problems pertain to the quality of tax administration. If the tax agencies can simply re-compute taxes from several previous years, and produce amounts that exceed a company’s revenue, then any discussion about tax rates loses its sense.

Third, the aforementioned problem demonstrates the significance of a correlation between the tax system and the government’s ability to make proper use of it. For instance, the introduction of a flat tax scale derived more from the Russian authorities’ inability to collect taxes along the progressive scale rather than from liberal ideological aspirations.

4. High economic growth rates play an important role in reducing the gap that now separates Russia from the most developed countries. The Russian economy is still registering high, although somewhat slowing, rates. This slowdown is natural for a transition from recuperative growth to investment growth. However, arguments to the effect that economic growth is the most decisive indicator of the effectiveness of the government’s actions contain inherent risks. In the first place, they pertain to purely quantitative parameters and extol growth to the detriment of quality and other structural shifts.

The dangers that come with an obsession with growth rates are as follows. First, it tends to neglect the quality of growth and structural shifts. The package of scenarios for Russia’s social and economic development that came under discussion over the past twelve months contains a proposal for doubling GDP through a steep increase of mineral resource output, partly with the aid of government investment. This scheme looks dangerous. Along with solving the political task, it increases the country’s dependence – economically and politically – on international market fluctuations and thus prompts Russia to practically replicate the experience of the Soviet Union.

Second, there is a danger of political falsification. As soon as quantitative parameters are thrust into the foreground, the entire state administration begins a rush for “fulfilling and over-fulfilling the objectives.” This is a well-known phenomenon in China, where the aggregate GDP of the provinces exceeds the data of national statistics by a factor of 1.5.

Recently, special techniques for stimulating economic growth have appeared in Russia’s economic policy – something that has not been seen in the fifteen years following the collapse of Communism. These new instruments provide the government with an opportunity for greater engagement in economic projects, such as work in special economic zones, investment funds, and concessions. Yet these “strong medicines” may turn out to be risky. Although they may become an important factor for speeding up social and economic growth, if handled carelessly they may fuel a degradation of the political and legal environment of economic activity.

5. Judiciary, law-enforcement and administrative institutions. Political institutions play a key role in ensuring steady social and economic development. It is even possible to speak about the declining productivity of economic legislation when its enforcement is inefficient. In other words, we have run out of resources for raising economic efficiency and consolidating economic growth solely within the format of the economic system and economic legislation proper. As a result, Russia has approached the phase where political institutions will predetermine further economic development to a large degree.

In order to stimulate an economic breakthrough, we must get quality labor and land legislation, laws on banks and bankruptcies, as well as tax and budget laws. All these norms and rules must receive implementation. But this requires efficient governmental machinery, fair judiciary, and a decent law enforcement system – in a word, the basic institutions of state power. Not a single law will produce the desired effects if the state fails to assure its enforcement, or if the courts fail to defend a citizen whose rights have been trampled on.

There can be no standard solutions in this sphere. The only conclusion is that the development of an adequate institutional environment (i.e. a system of incentives and sanctions) is of greater importance than increased financing of relevant sectors. The methods of stimulating economic activity include easing of administrative procedures and improvements in the conditions for business operations. Russia made a few steps forward in this area in the beginning of this decade but eventually the trend came to a halt. And if we take a look at the World Bank’s research, we will see that Russia has favorable conditions for opening a business. However, in the terms of contract implementation it is very vulnerable (See Table 2).

Source: Business in 2005: Elimination of Obstacles to Development. Moscow, 2005

6. Affluence of oil & gas resources and its impact on the economy.  Today, it is frequently heard that Russia’s abounding natural resources constitute one of its basic advantages and the only problem is we cannot learn how to use them properly. In the meantime, the natural rent is plagued with grave risks that can be described in the following ways:

– ‘Dutch disease,’ a growth of the ruble’s exchange rate and declining competitiveness of national manufacturers, in which import substitution becomes practically impossible and a country becomes dependent on the fluctuation of prices for its export items;

– imports of commodities prove to be more lucrative than imports of capital (technologies), while a strengthening ruble demands an ever greater inflow of foreign currency for solving investment tasks;

– structural shifts tend to be destimulated, i.e. the economic structure begins to degrade, risking to follow the plight that befell the Soviet Union, in which the economic system, based on high oil prices, collapsed after the oil market’s downturn;

– the inflow of finance generated by natural resources has a negative impact on the country’s political system, as the government is subjected to temptations of populism. It may allow itself to stage experiments with economic policy and to take unusual and irresponsible decisions that are compensated for with profuse infusions of money. The risk of corruption, which becomes practically inescapable when the government engages in the handout of the natural rent, becomes more pronounced as well;

– the demand for quality education drops, as the mineral resource sectors typically set forth lower qualification requirements for the workforce. Their domination in the economy cuts down the demand for education services, and this may produce a dangerous and enduring consequence.

History offers extensive evidence of the latter thesis, beginning with 16th-century Spain. Not a single country (with the exception of a few absolute monarchies) has been able to make breakthroughs solely by exploiting oil, gas or precious metals. However, a few recommendations are called for to confront those risks and neutralize the vulnerability of energy resource prices:

– The Stabilization Fund must be kept intact and not squandered for populist projects. In theory, this fund may have four functions: it can be used as a fund for future generations; as budget security in case of unfavorable market situations; as a tool for controlling the money supply; and for preventing the economy’s adjustment to high crude prices (to prevent a repetition of the Soviet Union’s fate). The latter two functions are especially topical for today’s Russia.

– A strategic plan of action in case oil prices collapse. This document is yet to be drafted, but it need not be made public. The strategic plan should contain a set of coordinated measures in the field of monetary, budgetary, customs, liabilities, and structural policy, and also specify many other issues pertaining to development of the national economy and its separate sectors should a long-term decline of oil prices begin.

SCENARIOS FOR LONG-TERM DEVELOPMENT

Given the current condition of state institutions, in addition to the controversial social, economic and political tendencies witnessed in Russian society, there are three qualitative models for the nation’s development:

– the Australian model: presupposes the diversification of an economy that is initially hinged on the production of raw materials and a simultaneous maintenance of political institutions of Western society;

– the Mexican model: the oil industry dominates the economy, although the latter is diversified by and large;

– the Nigerian/Venezuelan model: wherein the economy is pegged to oil, diversification is insignificant, and political institutions are feeble.

The labeling of economic models is rather conventional and there is no doubt Russia will have its own original model someday, regardless of whether the model is successful or not. Russia will not turn into Australia, or even Mexico or Nigeria for that matter, yet the unique experiences of those nations enable us to single out some circumstances of development and the consequences that should be reckoned with in the process of elaborating economic policy.

1. The Australian model. The experience gained by Australia, a country rich in natural resources, which was forced to cope with economic restructuring and the adaptation to large inflows of migrants, can be very useful for Russia. The export of raw materials to Japan and Southeast Asian countries provided the Australians with substantial resources, which they used to diversify the domestic manufacturing sector and build a modern postindustrial economy.

If applied to Russia’s long-term prospects, this pattern of development implies moves in the following directions:

– attainment of high or medium growth rates (the GDP and, especially, the GDP per capita) that would make it possible to push development up to the level of the most advanced countries;

– an increase of foreign investment that is diversified for various branches of the industry. The bulk of this investment is no longer concentrated in the fuel and energy sector. The latter retains a big share in exports, but its share in domestic production is gradually decreasing. This is how the model of industrial diversification through revenues gained from resource exports is translated into practice.

Depending on market prices for energy resources, the balance of payments on current operations is either close to zero or moves into the red due to the intense activity of foreign investors. The ruble continues to strengthen, which is made up for by growing labor productivity thanks to foreign and internal investors. The government abides by a conservative investment policy, which includes restrictions on overburdening the budget. The share of the budget in the GDP remains at a much lower level than in most developed countries and inflation does not exceed 3 percent annually.

Reform focuses extensively on political institutions and on upgrading the efficiency of the social sphere (in education and public health), as these very sectors offer answers for progressing along the road to development. The development of political and social institutions is oriented at the standards of modern democracy, and conditions for business resemble those of developed countries, and occasionally are even more lucrative in some areas (for instance, in terms of its less stringent labor laws). The judiciary system is free of political pressure and the authorities energetically fight corruption. This pattern of development lays the groundwork for gradually creating a common economic space between Russia and the EU, lifting tariff and non-tariff trade barriers and creating a common market.

This is the most dynamic model, and to make it feasible the government needs to conduct an active policy in building state institutions, restructuring the entire subsidized sector of the economy and raising the efficiency of budgetary spending.

2. The Mexican model presupposes high growth rates due to the development of the fuel and energy sector and related industries. If the price of crude remains at a consistently high level, growth rates and investment activity may be substantially higher than under the Australian model. The inflow of foreign direct investment is also high, but these funds largely become concentrated in the fuel and energy sector, and a handful of other sectors.

This model envisions a moderate diversification of the economy since the investors pay major attention to energy resource production. Hydrocarbons dominate in the structure of exports and account for a big percentage of the GDP. Diversification, although positive, is rather slow due to the threat of Dutch disease. Raw materials make up the bulk of exports, but the share of other industries – metallurgy, chemistry, and other ecologically unsafe branches, as well as agriculture – may see growth.

Trade balance shows a steady surplus, and the situation is the same with the balance of payments, although its surplus decreases continuously. This does not pose serious problems, however, unless the energy sector’s role experiences a dramatic tailspin in the global economy.

There is a high probability of an increase of the government’s role in the economy, primarily in two directions. First, the state may build up investment activity by investing in general-purpose infrastructure, as well as in the transportation of energy resources. Also, it may invest directly in those branches of the economy that private businesses find unattractive. In this case, the mechanism of private-state partnership takes on a key role as a mechanism of combining investment activity on both sides. Second, the government may work to protect domestic producers from foreign competitors. Reducing competitiveness for some domestic producers serves to enhance the positions of proponents of protectionism, and the government will have to resort to it sooner or later. Some sectors of the national economy (most importantly, agriculture and foodstuff producers, as well as some types of machine-building sectors) will be closed off from foreign competitors and this will produce a further reduction in their competitiveness.

In this model, the economic activity of the state collides with objective political and administrative barriers, as the country’s ability or inability to considerably improve the quality of state institutions, including the administrative and judiciary agencies, will become a key problem of increasing economic efficiency.

As for the political regime, it will most likely develop in the “one-and-a-half party” format in this situation, meaning that democracy as such will remain, but one of the political groups (or parties) will considerably increase its influence and constantly win elections. As it is clearly seen from the experience of Mexico, as well as Italy and Japan after World War II, such models can ensure rather successful economic development even in spite of some side effects (like high corruption levels). On the other hand, the energy resource sector’s domination will have an adverse effect on the stability of the “one-and-a-half party” system, bolstering the illusion of reliability and steadiness and thus undermining the responsibility for and quality of decisions taken.

The absence of significant social reforms constitutes a typical feature of this model; the availability of finance perpetuates the status quo in these sectors and does not give rise to loud social protests. Various segments of society will remain in a neo-Soviet condition and will not support the emergence of a social/economic market.

To sum up the characteristics of the Mexican model, let us underline two possibilities for Russia’s development. First, the model is vulnerable to internal and external shocks. It can function smoothly if the situation on the global markets is favorable for Russia, but a long, drawn-out fall in oil prices may trigger a heavy or even systemic crisis. Its severity will depend chiefly on the price of products within the energy resource industry. The longer the oil boom continues, the greater the structural dependence of the economy (internal production, first and foremost) on infusions of “easy money” and, consequently, on the supply of cheap imports. The risk of replicating the plight of the Soviet Union becomes a real threat at this point. Secondly, the implementation of this model will block any opportunity to make a breakthrough into the postindustrial system and to catch up with the most advanced countries in terms of development. This is the side effect of dropping a resolute modernization in the social sphere.

Events can take yet another turn. If oil prices remain high for a long period of time, the very economic process will impel a strengthening of political institutions, an ongoing democratization, and the bridling of corruption.

In summarizing the Mexican model, it guarantees a relatively stable economic development at moderate or high rates without structural changes in the economical, political or social spheres, thus setting up conditions for immediate economic and political stability, given the absence of external shocks. But the vulnerability to shocks and the barriers it contains for a postindustrial breakthrough remain very serious problems for this model of development.

3. The Nigerian model identifies the development of a country that has abounding natural resources and uses them amid advantageous foreign trade. It implies conservation in the economic and social sphere against the background of dominating patterns of lackluster development. Growth rates under this model depend fully on what is happening on the international market of energy resources, which are the only tools of making hard currency revenues necessary for the solution of all other economic, social and political tasks. Thus, growth rates will decrease over the medium term even though the prices of exported commodities may stay at high levels. This is due to the quality of economic policies and, correspondingly, the overall level of economic efficiency, which will worsen as long as the economy – pegged to oil resources – gains strength while crude oil brings in ever-larger hard currency revenues.

This scenario raises the probability of two tendencies in policy-making in general, and in economic policies in particular. In the first place, it signifies the strengthening of authoritarian trends. Large fuel and energy resources easily lend themselves to concentration in a trust, thus laying the groundwork for an authoritarian regime. The availability of vast financial reserves unrelated to a growth of labor productivity opens up the way to a system of government that does not bother to learn about the opinions of the taxpayers. The second tendency is related to the growth of populism in economic policies. Inexpensive financial resources are instrumental in buying political support through budget infusions and staging newfangled experiments in the economy.

Conditions of this kind make government investment a crucial factor for supporting high or medium rates of economic growth. Foreign investors treat such countries rather skeptically and invest money almost exclusively in the fuel and energy sector or in related industries. This produces an unenviable situation that includes a sharply deteriorating balance of payments on current operations, a gradual ebbing of fiscal and monetary policies, and a transition to a policy of budget deficits. As a source of government investment, the budget deficit acquires the role of an accelerator for economic growth, but this only worsens the economic situation in the country.

The result is classical forms of macroeconomic populism, evidenced perfectly well in Latin American countries; economic policies showed ominous signs even at the industrial stage of development of the labor forces. Virtually all the countries that acted on such prescriptions failed to bridge the gap that separated them from the highly advanced states, while others (like Argentina) widened the gap sharply. In those cases, a brief period of economic growth gave way to dire economic and political crises. Any withdrawal from such a populist model has always proven to be painful and has typically involved some sort of a military coup.

This means that the Nigerian scenario presumes a steady reproduction of political instability. Development along this path naturally leads to a deepening of the crisis of political and legal institutions with attendant high corruption levels and degradation of the social sphere. The latter gets the leftovers of government finance, while any allocations it may receive have a strong populist taint.

LIMITS TO GROWTH

Let us stress once again that whatever model of social, economic or political development is chosen for Russia will depend on its ability to build up-to-date social, economic, and political institutions. However, the progress of these sectors is heavily dependent on the rates of economic growth over the medium term (about two decades). Recall that the level of a country’s economic development (measured in GDP per capita) correlates with the status of society’s social, political and economic institutions.

Projections have been made for Russia’s development on the basis of three types of averaged annual growth rates:

Option A: Annual growth rates at 3-percent minimum rate, which generally corresponds to the average global rate;

Option B: Annual growth rates at 5-percent growth, which fails to solve the task of doubling the GDP but exceeds the averaged growth rate of the most developed countries and hence helps to balance economic development (the task of catch-up development). This growth rate seems to be the most suitable from the perspective of in-depth structural reforms in the economy and the social sphere;

Option C: Annual growth rates of 9 percent at the maximum, which is somewhat more than what is required for doubling the GDP over a decade.

Calculating the different models is based on an assumption that countries having similar levels of economic development (estimated against the GDP per capita) also require comparison in other realms of activity, including economic, social and political life. More importantly, the most economically developed countries have the most developed systems of political institutions. In other words, this projection is based on a theory that the achievement of certain levels of economic development will keep pace with changes in other parameters of economic, political and social life.

Whatever model is used as the basis for calculations operates the rate of growth of the GDP in both the absolute and per capita expression. To make international comparisons simpler, the GDP at purchasing power parity was selected as the main parameter. This method enables a researcher to analyze the target conditions and disregards fluctuations within a specific period of time. One important feature are the instruments that take account of general global trends that are linked to global economic growth regardless of the situation in each particular country. In other words, the attainment of a certain level of GDP per capita does not require a straightforward use of current data on a similar country but envisions corrections reflecting the shifts that result from global economic development. Chart 1 shows the dynamics of development over 20 years under each scenario. Also, it relies on a supposition that growth rates, compared to the level of development of certain countries and falling into a specified range in 2003, were steady.

The results of this calculation point to three conclusions that are important for understanding the tendencies of and prospects for Russia’s development.

First, even a 9-percent growth rate over a period of twenty years will not allow Russia to exceed the level of economic development that any of the advanced countries in the world had in 2003.

Second, the Nigerian model is not anywhere in sight even considering the prospect for very low GDP rates. To slide into a degradation of that scale, a country must struggle through chaos and this is scarcely possible for a country at Russia’s level of social and economic development.

Third, even low growth rates shown in Option A will eventually place Russia at the level of EU member-states, albeit the ones at the bottom of the EU list. Under Option B, the country will achieve the levels of Norway and Ireland, the two countries having the biggest GDP per capita in today’s Europe.

A more scrupulous quantitative analysis of long-term economic growth factors produces a result unexpected at first glance. It shows that the quality of institutions does not improve automatically over time. This is to say, there is no statistically meaningful correlation between the quality of institutions and the time factor. But steady economic growth always improves the quality of institutions (like the institution of ownership). Global tendencies show that revenues do not grow anywhere without improving the institutional environment. Expansion of modern democratic institutions always correlates with growing revenues, which proves once again the thesis running through this article. It stipulates that improvement of the institutional environment is a fundamental prerequisite for resolving the tasks of accelerated modernization Russia is faced with today.