This article focuses on the explanations of changes in official methodology and new information sources used to calculate the average monthly accrued wages of hired workers (employees) in organizations, individual entrepreneurs and individuals (average monthly income from employment).
Based on assessments of representativeness of the Sample Statistical Survey of Income (SSSI) by Russian regions, the authors investigate the possibility of abandoning the conditional «spreading coefficient» used in the official method of calculating earnings and switching to the direct use of the results of SSSI of hired workers. The article suggests clarifying the composition of categories of employees in order to make fuller use of statistical reporting data of organizations as the most reliable information source.
The changes in the official method of calculation of the employees' earnings, which were discussed in the article, are aimed at increasing the accuracy and reliability of the assessment of this indicator for Russia and Russian regions.

In 2016, Rosstat for the first time published the balance sheet and accumulation accounts with respect to fixed capital for the period of from 2011 to 2014. The fixed capital (fixed assets) in the BAP balance sheet are valued at the current market value as of balance sheet date and within the 2008 SNA assets. This article presents results of the work carried out by Rosstat on construction of accumulation accounts and balance sheet with respect to fixed capital for the period from 2011 to 2014. The author reveals the role of the balance sheet and the basic identity connecting it with the accumulation accounts, components of its construction are given along with the development stages for conducting the calculations.
The existing types of cost estimates of stocks of fixed capital (fixed assets) are described. Methods of estimating fixed capital (fixed assets) at current market value and Rosstat's methodology used in constructing a balance sheet and accumulation accounts with respect to fixed capital are addressed.
The article presents data analysis of balance sheet and accumulation accounts with respect to fixed capital for 2011-2014.
There is a review of work carried out by Rosstat in order for other types of non-financial assets to be reflected in the balance sheet.

The article provides a brief economic and statistical analysis of the state of the environment in Russia and the degree to which the economic activity affects the environment and natural resources on the basis of the system of indices/indicators compiled by Rosstat, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation and other federal executive bodies (within the framework of the federal plan of statistical work). Official statistics confirms a position shared by many experts that for the last decade situation with the protection of the environment and vital human interests from the possible negative impact of economic and other activities, as well as from hazardous natural phenomena, or the level of environmental safety in the territory where resides the majority of the Russian population has not undergone any significant improvements.
A number of segments of the economic activity in modern Russia are characterized by degradation of the environment, high levels of carbon emissions and inadequate energy efficiency, outdated and inefficient production technologies, growing scarcity of resources and their losses, and costs associated with all these issues. In addition, statistical data indicates that environmental safety is adversely affected by the depletion of mineral, raw, aquatic and biological resources, including because of the prevalence of extractive and resource intensive industries in the economy, inefficient and «predatory» nature management, large share of shadow economic activity in the use of natural resources, presence of environmentally unfavorable territories characterized by a high degree of pollution and degradation of natural complexes.
The article highlights issues related to reforming the system of indicators and environmental statistics itself due to the worsening of the situation with the functioning of a significant number of environmentally hazardous industries, with a shortage of facilities for cleaning atmospheric emissions, industrial and municipal wastewater, processing, neutralization, utilization, disposal and processing of solid waste from manufacturing and consumption, as well as in connection with environmental pollution caused by transboundary transport of toxic substances, infectious agents and radioactive substances from the territories of other states.
Despite the extremely volatile environmental situation in the country in general, some positive trends have been noted, such as the measures taken in Russia aimed at protecting the atmospheric air have made it possible to reduce the additional death rate of the population and its morbidity determined by the negative impact of pollution.

This article presents interregional statistical analysis of water use sustainability in the Russian Federation. Constructed analytical grouping showed uneven distribution of sewage pollution levels in regions of the country. The largest wastewater discharge was detected in St. Petersburg and the Moscow region, which is explained primarily by the presence of water-intensive industrial plants, and also is due to the large population residing in these areas.
The paper argues the extreme need to strengthen the ecologization of the water sector, which should be conducted without reducing the pace of development of economic activity at the regional level. On the basis of the correlation analysis of the relationship between the dynamics of the gross regional product and the discharge of contaminated sewage over a ten-year period, this situation can be observed in only one third of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. A quarter of all the Russian regions show negative trends in water use: economic development is accompanied by an increase in the discharge of contaminated sewage.
For a more detailed assessment of the degree of sustainability of water use, it is proposed to calculate the decoupling effect index - the ratio of the growth rate of the gross regional product to the rate of growth of contaminated sewage into surface water bodies. Based on the results of these calculations for the year 2015, a matrix similar to the matrix of the Boston Consulting Group was drawn up, in which four groups of regions were identified according to the index of the decoupling effect in water use: economically unstable, economically and environmentally unsustainable, environmentally unsustainable and economically (and environmentally sustainable).The article discusses feasibility of using the decoupling effect index as a tool for planning regional environmental and economic policy.

The article considers the issues of financial and legal support of the activities of statistical bodies. The author makes several suggestions on solving those issues, such as to optimize certain types of maintenance costs on territorial statistical offices, to improve the technology for presenting users with official statistical information within the framework of Rosstat's centralized collection and processing of statistical data. The article also reviews new approaches to ensure confidentiality of primary statistical data with regard to information needs and competencies of the individual categories of respondents.

The article reviews and summarizes the international experience of generating culture satellite account. There are results of analysis of methodological reports, developed by the national statistical bureaus and the relevant cultural statistics departments of Australia, Canada, Columbia, Finland, Spain, UK and USA, such as, view on the concept of «culture» for purpose of culture satellite accounts’ construction, description of structure of economics of culture and the set of cultural and creative industries, applied classifications of economic activities and products.
On the basis of the existing practice of compiling culture satellite account the author defines three types of it: satellite account with the structure similar to the core national accounts, tables of selected macroeconomic indices; tables that are not presented in the core national accounts. The article mentions a few of them and sets out development direction for culture satellite accounts.

Redistribution of resources with regard to blank turnover of economy:
statistical estimate, analysis and regulation. The paper reveals capacities of modern statistics to deliberately search for an effective mechanism of regulation of investment activities and counteracting negative trends in increasing the resource intensity of the national economy. The importance of the relevant information and data base, allowing to monitor the implementation of the investment regulation mechanism is underlined. Such a mechanism should ensure the balance of interests of economic entities, as well as the creation of such conditions under which the investment of capital for economic entities in developed regions would be uncontroversially beneficial compared to an unregulated development option, taking into account the damage from environmental imbalance. The article explains indices of adequate estimation of results of such regulation characterizing the degree of investment redistribution and possibilities of their optimal redistribution.

The article describes basic components of processes and sub-processes of the Generic Statistical Business Process Model - GSBPM. The short characteristic of GSBPM is given. The authors demonstrate in what way application of GSBPM as preferable reference model in national statistical authorities facilitates communication, information exchange and cooperation between national statistical authorities. The article reviews best practices of statistical offices of several foreign countries (Australia, Denmark and Canada) in using GSBPM to solve the issues of harmonization and modernization of statistical activities. In particular, the experience of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in tackling a wide range of practical tasks. The adoption of the GSBPM in Statistics Denmark is described on the example of the corporate long-term plan project “Strategy-2015” which strategic objective is the gradual achievement of higher extent of standardization and unification of processes and IT systems. Analysis of the report presented by the Statistics Canada proved how the model can be as a foundation for several statistical programs for ensuring their quality at practical application and identification of those subprocesses for which there is a greater risk of errors.

The article deals with methods of constructing integral indicators of socio-economic phenomena and processes; and argues for the necessity to record the development of the phenomena over time; it also introduces new approaches to the aggregation. A method of aggregation of individual features that characterize different sides of complex phenomena, in the integral indicator that takes into account the nonequivalence of individual features and their trends in time.
Much attention is paid to calculating integral indicators weight indexes in a dynamic aspect. The calculated indicators can be matched both in statics and in time, providing a comparative description of a complex phenomenon, allowing to judge its dynamics, making final conclusions more visible and unequivocal. The article investigates of weighting coefficients in the economic and statistical analysis of economic and social phenomena.

This article studies relevant issues of goods flow chains in wholesale and retail trade of the Republic of Belarus. The purpose of the research is to estimate goods flow chains, which specifies the number of resellers in the trade system and the development level of trade as a branch of the economy.
The main result of the study represents procedures of gross and net turnover, of goods flow chains ratio calculations in the system of wholesale and retail trade of the Republic of Belarus for 2010-2015. These calculations are based on official statistics and on the author’s own estimation of selected categories of the wholesale turnover that are not accounted officially. Thus, for the first time, the article provides quantitative estimation of the number of resellers that goods pass on the way from the first wholesale seller to the consumer for 2013-2015. The article also provides retrospective estimation of chains ratio values for 2010-2012.