The article examines factors of economic growth in Russia over more than a decade (2011–2021). The focus is on evaluating new factors, including specific ones, which have influenced the development dynamics of the period under review. Models of cyclic dynamics and macroeconomic factor models are used as research tools.

The authors consider possibilities for estimating potential GDP using two approaches: through the selection and elimination of short-term cyclic fluctuations and based on the construction of factor models. The paper discusses the matter of substantiating potential GDP, taking into account changes in the ratio of factors that form it, including the external economic factor. It is noted that for a more detailed analysis of specific factors, there has to be a transition to monthly and quarterly data treatment, which is done using the example of cyclic dynamics models and factor models. The nature of the impact of specific factors by specified periods, including the post-crisis period of 2011–2014, the 2014 to 2017 period, when Western countries imposed sanctions, as well as the impact in 2020–2021 of the factor associated with the coronavirus pandemic, are revealed. To be specific, for the latest period of development of the domestic economy, the paper demonstrates how three waves of COVID-19 correlate with the three waves of its impact on economy. Meanwhile, despite the increase of the coronavirus waves up to the fourth wave, their direct and conjugated impact decreased exponentially. At the same time, the impact was differentiated by industry sectors. A number of industry sectors during this period gained a significant impetus to accelerate development, which will affect the subsequent change in the structure of production.

Strengthening the role of new specific factors now enhances the relevance and need to apply and develop these methods, including the active use and development of import matrices as part of the input-output tables. In this regard, the authors consider some directions in development of methods for addressing new factors at the present stage.

The aim of the economic and statistical study presented by the authors is the evaluation of the role of small manufacturing enterprises in innovation development of real sector of Russian economy. Compared to developed countries, Russia is characterized by a relatively low innovative activity of small industrial enterprises, as well as by their smaller contribution to employment and to the increase of living standards of the population. At the same time, small industrial enterprises have the highest potential for innovation growth, especially in high-tech economic activities. The similarity of small enterprises’ definition in Russia and in the European Union, the magnitude of innovative activity of small enterprises in Europe, and the development of instruments to support innovative companies make studying the European experience in stimulating the innovative activity of small enterprises in the real sector of the economy in order to adapt it to domestic practice relevant.

The authors reveal the potential areas of innovative activity growth for small manufacturing enterprises on the basis of foreign experience as well as develop recommendations on support for small entrepreneurship in industrial sector. The research is based on Community Innovation Survey (CIS), national reports of European countries on the topic, the federal statistical surveys № 4 and № 2-MP provided by the Federal State Statistics Service.

The study revealed key drivers of European small enterprises’ innovative activity: well-developed cooperation with other organizations, substantial investment in R&D, broad coverage of small business enterprises with support measures. Best European practices of small enterprises’ innovative activity and the analysis of the main barriers of Russian small enterprises’ innovative activity allowed to define the promising directions for supporting small business the real sector of economy of Russia: developing modernization programmes for enterprises, extending the access to borrowed financial sources, developing cooperation ties between small business enterprises. The authors highlighted growth points of innovative activity of small manufacturing enterprises that can be taken into account while developing support measures in order to increase small business’ innovative activity, create new jobs and provide population employment.

The objective of the article is to outline the current methodology and prepare development proposals to provide business tendency monitoring in terms of measuring the technological and digital activity of Russian manufacturing enterprises in the field of greening.

The article covers the existing statistical toolkit and reflects key directions for improving (starting from 2018) the methodology under consideration. The authors show a specific empirical case through the presentation of the obtained monitoring results. At the same time, the main indicators used to assess progress in the field of green technologies and the environmental friendliness of organizations in international practice are given. The analysis was based on quantified data from annual business tendency surveys of digital activity of Russian manufacturing enterprises for 2019–2020, including a set of indicators characterizing technological and digital activity in the field of greening and increasing resource efficiency.

The results obtained indicate that despite the small scale of the current use of digital tools that contribute to the effective achievement of environmental goals and objectives in the ecological and economic production system in 2020, there was an active spread of activity in this area compared to 2019. In particular, the recorded trends were traced within the framework of measures aimed at improving energy efficiency, efficiency of water use and raw materials, as well as waste disposal. In addition, monitoring showed that respondents from most sub-sectors in 2020 expected the emerging positive trends to strengthen in the short term in all major areas of the green agenda.

The trends identified and outlined in the study indicate that for Russia, expanding the depth and coverage of statistical observations of the process of greening industries, including with the help of business tendency observation apparatus, is an urgent task that requires constant improvement of methodological support in terms of the tools used and data analysis, as well as construction of new meters, including the corresponding composite indicators.

Completing a partially known vector of quarterly data is considered in the article as a way to identify unknown components of this vector based on structural information contained in its known components as well as in the preselected reference macroeconomic matrix. In other words, the problem of completing a quarterly vector is reduced to «upbuilding» its unknown part according to the known one based on indirect a priori information.

The article opens with a formal statement of the general problem of completing vector data together with its economic and statistical interpretation as applying to reconciling the quarterly production accounts. A general analytical solution to the problem of completing the vector of row sums is obtained on the basis of block partitioning of a reference matrix with nonnegative elements in the form of a linear model. It is shown how to use the obtained solution for completing the product output vector in the reporting quarter using the reference matrix associated with the corresponding quarter of the previous year, and how to heuristically estimate the calculation imprecision rate for the reporting quarter by analyzing the deviation of the calculated vector from the homothetic ray determined by the reference matrix. Further generalization of the analytical solution of the completing problem for the joint adjustment of quarterly production results in the reporting year in order to bring them into exact correspondence with the annual data is proposed. Particular attention is paid to heuristic estimating the imprecision rate in calculations for the reporting year based on the analysis of the difference between the system of calculated quarterly vectors and a homothety of their sum (i. e., column vector of the row margin totals for the reference annual matrix). In conclusion, recommendations to improve reliability of the completion results for quarterly vectors in practical situations are given.

This study draws on the findings of a survey conducted by the Interstate Statistical Committee of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS-Stat) in the framework of a joint project with the UNFPA – CISPop «Better Data for Better Policies».

The paper aims to present the author’s assessment of the level of harmonization between the national census programs across the CIS and the inter-comparability of their results in terms of total population size and its composition. The study is based on the analysis of methodological documents, which include census forms, manuals for census enumerators (census takers) and technical materials for census personal, that describes the concepts, definitions, and classifications used in national censuses. For countries where no censuses were taken, the authors used materials from pilot censuses and drafts of census documents.

The study established that among countries there is a high degree of coherence of national census programs in terms of the key topics, concepts, and classifications used, as well as the wordings of the questions and their prompts. Simultaneously, the analysis allowed us to determine that national statistical services of the region focus on the expectations of their respective populations and take into account national legislation, local conditions, and traditions. First of all, nation-specific features manifested themselves in the formulation of questions concerning the economic, educational, and ethno-cultural characteristics of the population.

Analysis of the materials of the works performed on the implementation of the 2020 round of population census programs across the CIS indicates that, based on the data of population censuses conducted in the past few years, it is possible to obtain harmonized data on the size and main characteristics of the population of countries, to provide international comparisons both within the CIS region, and between countries of the region and other countries of the world. International statistical community should be well informed about national practices of the CIS countries so that region-specific features can be accounted for in the international recommendations for future censuses.

The article covers fundamental challenges to statistics that affect activities related to the collection, processing, analysis and interpretation of information about socio-economic phenomena and processes. The paper focuses on the staffing situation in scientific, educational and management spheres in modern Russia. According to the authors, there is currently a shortage of personnel with basic education in statistics. This is caused, on one hand, by the fact that the number of educational institutions that train these specialists, and in fact have relevant departments, is decreasing, on the other hand – by the process of aging and irreplaceable natural loss of scientists, teachers and statisticians. Decline in professional competence is closely linked to the low and declining statistical literacy of the population, which also leads to disorientation while solving household tasks.

No less urgent challenge to contemporary statistics is the distrust of the population in statistical data, the accusation of deliberately concealing the truth and sugarcoating the reality. This reaction can result from the population’s lack of motivation to study and understand the actual processes taking place – given the availability of a wide range of statistical data and methodological explanations. This resulted, in the authors’ opinion, in a new challenge which has spread amidst almost unlimited access to the Internet for various population strata and the free formation of content in their social networks and pages. External and internal political manipulation is often carried out through the dissemination of fake information, which is also a serious challenge to the institute of state statistics.

The article concludes that an impartial consideration of the challenges that domestic statistics is facings, development of directions for addressing the issues encountered and promotion of genuine achievements (with media coverage) allow to tackle the adverse impact on the public of misinformation and false information about socio-economic phenomena in the country as a whole and its regions.

The article is devoted to the study of the reasons for the formation of differences between the official measurement of inflation in the Russian economy and the subjective perception of inflationary processes by the population.

The introductory part of the article shows that the population's estimates of inflation in Russia (perceived inflation) are more than twice as high as official data. There is no consensus in the scientific literature on the explanation of this bias, which determines the relevance of the study. Due to the high level of observed inflation, households may believe that the real yield of financial instruments is negative and prefer consumption to savings, including through loans. The purpose of the article is to determine the causes of discrepancies between official inflation indicators and estimates of price growth for goods and services by the population.

The main part of the article analyzes the time series of the Rosstat consumer price index from 2014 to 2021, data from the Bank of Russia on inflation perceived by the population, macroeconomic indicators of the International Monetary Fund, including the dynamics of price indices of 12 groups of goods and services in 86 countries. Methods of descriptive, correlation and regression analysis were used. There are two main cognitive reasons why the level of inflation perceived by the population exceeds the official one. Firstly, in the course of surveys, according to the author, respondents often incorrectly determine the time frame (perceiving the price increase not for one year, but for a period of about two years). Secondly, the population (households as respondents) pays attention primarily to the goods that have risen in price most significantly (further increasing the gap in estimates). In addition, the population perceives the end of discounts on individual goods as a multiple overall price increase. Based on a cross-country comparative analysis of price indices, the author suggests that the increase in the variability of the relative price index leads to an increase in discrepancies between official inflation data and estimates of inflation by the population.

In the final part of the article, conclusions are formulated – the author's positions on the problem under consideration, according to which it is proposed to increase the financial and statistical literacy of Russians in order to reduce differences in estimates of inflation by official statistics and the population.

The article considers the relationship between the indicators of physical activity of youth in Russia and the level of their life satisfaction.

The authors draw attention to the importance of understanding how physical culture and sports can contribute to the formation of an indicator of the subjective well-being of youth in Russia (on the example of students). The study is based on data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring

Survey – Higher School of Economics (RLMS – HSE). For empirical analysis were used individual panel data for 2009–2019. The analyzed sample includes full-time students of Russian universities, technical colleges and colleges aged 16 to 25 (2918 men and 3417 women).

The first part of the article analyzes trends and characteristics of the physical activity of Russian students in recent years before the COVID-19 pandemic, reveals preferences for engaging in specific types of physical activity and sports, analyzes the intensity of these activities and assesses life satisfaction of Russian students depending on their level of physical activity and sports.

Based on the patterns identified in the first part of the article, hypotheses are formulated about the presence of a positive correlation between the indicators of physical activity of students (physical culture and sports activities and their intensity) and their subjective assessment of life satisfaction. The results of econometric testing of the hypotheses are presented in the second part of the article. Ordered logit regression on panel data with a random individual effect was used for the analysis. Evaluations were conducted for each gender group separately. When constructing the corresponding models, in addition to physical activity indicators, a wide range of individual factors that could affect the life satisfaction of young residents of our country were also taken into account, namely age, gender, place of residence, availability of own housing, self-assessment of health status, body mass index, smoking habit, marital status, income, loan debts of household.

The regression analysis demonstrates that, all else being equal, a positive correlation between the physical activity and its intensity, on one hand, and level of life satisfaction on the other, but exclusively for male students. For women, however, only high-intensity physical activity leads to an increase in their level of life satisfaction.

According to results of the study, the authors formulated several recommendations aimed at stimulating the physical activity of young students, and concluded that the implementation of special programs to revitalize the lifestyle of Russian students, taking into account the patterns identified in the work, can contribute both to an increase in the share of physically active youth and the growth of the subjective well-being of this category of the population.

The article is devoted to the life and work of a prominent, but now forgotten, Russian statistician and statesman A.M. Zolotarev (1853– 1912), who headed the Central Statistical Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in 1904–1911. Based on the analysis of his works and on a number of historiographic publications, the image of the scientist who was at the origins of the formation of the course of military statistics in the military educational institutions of the country is recreated. His role in the teaching of military geography is shown. The paper covers his activities in the Central Statistical Committee: issuing of a new periodical statistical publication «Yearbook of Russia», attempts to reform state statistics undertaken in 1908. The article characterizes proposals of A.M. Zolotarev on reforming state statistics. The author argues that despite the fact that for a number of reasons, mostly objective, some conceptual ideas of A.M. Zolotarev about the organizational principles of Russian state statistics were not accepted at that time, his role in the development of the Russian state statistics and especially in the formation of military statistics is very significant.