The article describes methodological tools that allow expanding information capabilities of the results of business tendency surveys in the Russian manufacturing by using a new composite indicator - the Business Climate Index. The authors explain the feasibility of an alternative measure that summarizes information about entrepreneurial opinions, and give arguments to prove its effectiveness. Identification of the cyclic profile in the new index dynamics and its visualization through the tracer clearly demonstrate all significant waves of producers’ optimism and pessimism over the period since January 2005 to February 2018 as important drivers of the ongoing changes in the business climate of national manufacturing. Graphical interpretation of the VAR simulation results using the impulse response function allows us to detail the relationship between the dynamics of indices of business climate and industrial production in recent years.

In the modern scientific literature, there is a fair amount of publications devoted to study of tax potential of the country and constituent entities, while the municipal tax potential is less well understood. This article analyses municipal tax potential on the example of one of the constituent entities of Russia - the Tambov region. Using multidimensional classification, the authors selected municipal entities of the Tambov region with the highest tax revenue and determine their socio-economic characteristics for 2013 and 2016. Comparative analysis of the composition of municipal entities included in clusters revealed a specific formation dynamic of municipal tax potential in the region. The authors obtained consolidated characteristics of territories with a maximum and a minimum level of tax potential and give generalized description of growth centers and territories with low rates of socio-economic development.

This article reviews analytical possibilities of statistical information in comparative analysis of labour resources balance for 2015. It is compiled on the basis of various methodological approaches and references different constituent entities of the Russian Federation. In the first part of the article the authors refer to the fundamentally new methodology of assessment of the distributive blockfor indicators of the labour resources balance (that had been adopted in recent years).This data is generated based on the results of a samplesurvey of the workforce presented in a methodologically comparable form with enterprise reporting data and adjusted for the size of the standard sampling error. In the analytical part of the article, the authors comment on the results of the 2005 comparison of the employment and employment distribution for certain types of economic activity, calculated according to the classical scheme used before 2005 and the current new methodological principles. The greatest discrepancies were revealed in several constituent entities of the Russian Federation, which confirms the differentiation between regions in terms of the latent employment of the population and the indicators of informal use of labor.

The article contains the author’s research on the theoretical and methodological aspects of measuring foreign trade and its role in integration processes. The author determines approaches to the statistical assessment of foreign trade and export potentials, and shows how statistical instruments for measuring certain foreign trade indicators consider both the specific features of the categories of foreign trade under review and quality and availability of statistical information on them. The article establishes classification principles of structuring methods for assessing the economic benefits from integration based on their grouping into non-econometric (different indices and equilibrium models) and econometric (gravity, regression models, dynamic interindustry models) methods. The significance of the operating period for integration systems in question is shown. The content of open source methodological materials related to defining fields of economy with the most significant integration potential is analyzed.

The article highlights and analyzes the key milestones for the Section of Socio-Economic Problems and Statistics of the Maxim Gorky House of Scientists of Russian Academy of Sciences, in connection with Section’s 65th anniversary and the forthcoming 100th anniversary of the House of Scientists (2020). The authors consider history leading up to the establishment of the Section in the second half of the 1950s and note challenges in combining efforts while conducting studies of socio-economic development of the country and research projects on national statistics. The evolution of the main activities of the section that meet the requirements of economic and statistical science, as well as practical activities at different stages of the development of the USSR and Russia, is shown. Descriptive overview of the Section’s performance is divided by several periods: 1950-1960s, 1970s, 1980-1990s, from 2000 onwards. The role of section leaders, leading scientists and practitioners in the formation of topics of the section meetings is reflected.