The article deals with methodological, organizational, and technological issues of integrating population data obtained from various administrative sources and corporative big data. The article proves the particular relevance of the interaction between official statistics and other governmental and corporative information systems amidst the digitization of the economy and social life and the incipient establishment of the federal population data register. The authors propose a system of interrelated aggregates, characterizing various categories of population, which differ according to criteria of citizenship, permanent residence, duration, and purposes of stay on the territory of Russia. Challenges associated with estimating these aggregates are analyzed. The article considers possibilities and legal limitations in the work of statisticians on systematizing information, rationalizing the selection and subsequent joint use of information, characterizing an individual (i.e. matching) for addressing various tasks faced by social and demographic statistics. Special attention is paid to the various options for resolving the issue of a personal code (one or more) that allow linking information on the individual from different databases. The need to ensure the transparency of the methodology used by the various participants of informational interaction is emphasized, which in turn shall pave the way for the harmonization and, where possible, the unification of such methodology. The paper demonstrates the crucial role of preliminary qualitative analysis of data from different sources and explains mechanisms for further interaction of statistical authorities with organizations, interested in this information, and social structures. Using mobile operators’ and providers’ data on the population of the city, necessary conditions for their adequate interpretation – transparent methodology, clear description of population aggregates to estimate, and assumptions used for such estimations – are characterized.

The article presents the results of economic and statistical study assessing the implementation of the principle of decent wages for employees in general education. According to the author, at present, determining the amount of funding for teachers’ salaries is caught in the trap of using the basic criterion defined as the «average salary in the region», which does not allow a significant part of specialists to receive decent remuneration for their work and provokes a high staff turnover. In order to eliminate negative trends, the author proposed adjusting the principle for payment of salaries for school teachers, with an emphasis on increasing the minimum wage rather than the average wage. The study proposes a modified method for calculating the leading coefficient. This indicator makes it possible to correlate the growth rates of teachers' salaries with the basic (starting) conditions prevailing in the regions at the beginning of the implementation of the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 597 of 7 May 2012 «On Measures for the Implementation of State Social Policy» and also takes into account the uneven distribution of the salary fund for school teachers (by comparing the achievement of the May decree target in regions with the number of specialists receiving a minimum salary or less). The modified methodology was tested on statistical data for 83 constituent entities of Russia. The approbation showed that in 2019 11 constituent entities of the Russian Federation could not provide even the minimum conditions for a decent salary for all school teachers (in 2015, they included 3 territories, in 2017 – 13). All the necessary conditions for the implementation of the principle of decent salaries are created only in three constituent entities of the Russian Federation. The conclusion summarizes possibilities of practical use of regional experience in the implementation of the «All included» model (based on the establishment of a single salary for all professional activities in the school) to improve the planning of teachers' salaries in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation.

The paper focuses on the challenges of training a new generation of statisticians with the core 21st-century competencies for life, work, and creativity in a digital society amidst the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0). Along with the economic feasibility, the attractiveness of improving the quality of life, and new possibilities for developing the creative potential of human beings, Industry 4.0 freights with risks of destabilization of the world socio-economic system, but also creates a new cultural and historical context of the advancement of the humankind, where the network becomes a new human habitat, when digital technologies penetrate all spheres of human activity. It requires the development of «digital» skills that have never been more important than today. Summarizing the results of digital skills projects, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics developed the «Digital Literacy Global Framework» as a basis for creating national digital literacy frameworks and digital competence models for various occupations. The article substantiates the importance of digital competencies and the feasibility of developing common requirements for digital literacy in the EAEU member-states and establishing a system for its development with a single scientific, educational and methodological center that will at the same time become the core of a new ecosystem of continuous statistical training, designed to correct the situation when it is almost impossible to find a statistician with the necessary competencies in the labor market. One of the reasons for this is that the existing system of statistical education does not meet the needs of the digital age, which requires new approaches to the organization of continuing education. However, the digital agenda implies not only the development of digital competencies, including statistical literacy but also the emergence of new «digital» professions, to which the profession of a statistician can be assigned if it is filled with competencies listed in the paper. This will allow statistics to take its rightful place among the occupations determining sustainable development in the digital age.

The development of innovations changes the usual living environment of people, affects their standard of living and lifestyle. The purpose of the article is to identify the main factors that determine the attitude of the Russians to innovations and contribute to their spread in everyday life. Findings based on the data of sample surveys, in particular the Comprehensive survey of living conditions of the population (2016), sample Federal statistical observation on the use of information technologies and information and telecommunication networks by the population (2018), and the materials of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) and the authors’ research conducted in 2017 in Moscow and the Moscow region. The authors used a set of methods for statistical data analysis. The application of the classification tree method revealed the main factors that influence the use of innovative technologies in everyday practice. Factor analysis was used to determine the specifics of Internet use by the Russians. The two-step cluster analysis procedure allowed to form two typology groups (clusters) of respondents depending on their use of such innovative practice as distance financial services. A positive attitude to innovation and information and communication technologies is determined by the experience of using modern technologies in the educational process, the age and interest (readiness) of respondents to use innovations and digital technologies in everyday life. The attitude to innovation is largely determined by the psychological characteristics of the respondent, their willingness to accept innovations. Although innovative practices such as tablet use and distance financial services are widely distributed, their prevalence is determined by similar factors. At the macro level, the parameters of the image and quality of life in various types of settlements, and the involvement in modern technologies in the workplace have an impact. The social and professional status of the person plays a more crucial role than the type of economic activity.

The article discusses research results of socio-economic challenges in modern society using selected international statistics and presented in the format of National Transfer Accounts (NTA) as a follow-up to the author’s prior publications in the journal «Voprosy Statistiki» (Issues 4 and 11 of 2019; Issue 5 of 2020). Introduction to the article rationalizes the subject matter topicality both given the pressing problem of ageing of modern society and in connection with the necessity of practical adoption of National Transfer Accounts in the system of Russian statistics as a coherent derivation and elaboration of the System of National Accounts (SNA), expanding analytical capabilities of statistics. Going into the main part of the article, the author applies statistical methods to explore the key macroeconomic consequences of the global ageing of modern societies. The article provides evidence that macroeconomic challenges and risks to sustainable development emerge primarily in the countries featuring low birth rates, a high share of seniors, and significant levels of government support to the households. The author studies how shifts in the population age distribution translate into changes in consumer spending and incomes. The article presents and analyzes initial findings of the quantitative evaluation of these correlations based on historical data on healthcare expenditures and per capita labor income. The paper identifies the factors and the extent of their impact on how people choose the economic behavior model that ultimately determines the volume and structure of consumption in high inflation economies. Finally, the article lays down a number of conclusions to the following essence: (1) empirical estimates confirm the hypothesis that ageing society presents a heavier «economic burden» for the government finances rather than for the economy as a whole and (2) further advances in macro-statistic work (SNA core sections, National Transfer Accounts, satellite accounts within SNA) become increasingly important for expanding analytical capabilities required to seek for a more effective mechanism to build-up and utilize national resources in the face of population ageing.

This paper aims to identify the relationship between public spending on education and GDP in two groups of countries: members and non-members of the OECD, based on statistical and econometric methods, including the methodology for international comparative analysis. The two selected groups of countries differ in their level of economic development: the OECD, the so-called ‘rich countries club’, and the second group, relatively low-income developing countries. The first part of the article deals with theoretical and information and methodological issues related to research on the relationship between educational development and economic growth, in particular the general theory of human capital investment, human capital in endogenous growth models, principles for empirical estimates of the relationship between education spending and economic growth. In the second part of the article, were tested the hypotheses concerning key factors of economic growth. The authors based them on studied theoretical sources, empirical works, and the proposed statistical base of empirical calculations. The paper substantiated the degree of impact of various factors using different groups of countries as an example. Based on panel data for 1995–2018, we estimate econometric models of the relationship between GDP and education expenditures, using time lags. The results confirm the positive impact of total education spending on GDP in the long term. However, the results differ for the two groups of countries. While in rich countries, investment in all levels of education has a positive impact on GDP, in poor countries, only primary education has a positive return, while spending on secondary and vocational education reduces GDP. This may be due to the lack of demand for high-level education in economies with poorly developed technologies and labor markets. As conclusions, the authors formulate proposals of a managerial and methodological nature regarding the need to consider the country’s development level in its educational policy and choose investment directions that are adequate to the current needs of the economy. In countries with a low level of development and a low level of education for the majority of the population, diverting public resources to finance professional education may slow economic growth in the short term. Conversely, increased coverage of mass primary education may contribute to rapid growth in the near future.

The article covers the study of several international and foreign information and methodological standards and documents on energy resources statistics. It also examines the possibilities of harmonizing energy resources statistics with the System of National Accounts (SNA). The relevance of the problems is determined by the need for further development of the Russian system of environmental-economic accounting and, in particular, of statistics on energy reserves, adaptation of international standards and best practices in this area in some foreign countries. International standards and foreign methodological documents are characterized in the context of ensuring international comparability of energy resources assessment and compilation of environmental-economic accounts for the SNA. Since the ongoing adaptation of environmental-economic accounting will be completed shortly, a compilation of Mineral and Energy Resource Accounts is also a vital activity of statistical offices. To adequately integrate them into the SNA, indicators of proven resources should be estimated in value terms. The implementation of these approaches will in turn lead to a statistically correct valuation of natural capital and the inclusion of these data in the SNA. However, prices for capital valuation can be applied, on the basis of the disaggregation of statistical indicators, exogenous extraction factor, as well as analysts' forecasts. The harmonization of statistical information on energy reserves on the conceptual basis of national accounting will ensure international comparability of the indicators under consideration as well as will promote to the ecological orientation of sustainable economic development and green growth both in Russia and abroad.

The article covers some of the results of the study on the management and activities of the national statistical bodies during the Great Patriotic War. The authors analyzed several historiographic issues connected to the research area and related to more or less major publications on the history of the national state statistics. It is argued that there is an extreme shortage of scientific publications on archival materials about the activities of the CSB under the State Planning Committee of the USSR and its territorial bodies in 1941–1945. The specifics of managing statistical work activities during the war period are shown to provide country leaders with the necessary statistical information, primarily for operational management decisions in extreme conditions. The process of transforming the content of basic statistical work and statistical methodology to wartime realities. In this context, organizational and substantive aspects of urgent censuses (resources and production capacity) are relevant. The article formulates conclusions and proposals for further study and generalization of experience with the operation of the national state statistics in extreme conditions.