2018 Issue №2

The article focuses on the issue of cultural organizations performance measurement. The author explains the benefits of applying a non-parametric “Data Envelopment Analysis” that is based on comparison of input and output indicators, to performance measurement of cultural organizations. Using statistical data on Russian federal theatres, the author empirically tests their performance that relates to such aspects as organization’s reputation, artistic excellence, maximization of access to cultural assets, etc. Based on statistics of the Russian Ministry of Culture in 2012—2016, the author analyses overall trends in performance of federal theatres, as well as provides results concerning each research object. Efficiency indices of theatres allow the author to distinguish four groups of Russian federal theatres in terms of performance aspects under research.

The resort tax is supposed to become a development instrument for the tourist infrastructure. The main idea of the article is to prove that this assumption doesn’t agree either with the experiences of foreign countries or the Russian actual situation. The idea is implemented through the analysis of legislative base of the resort tax implementation, indicators of budgetary performance of tourist taxes abroad as well as the analysis of the current situation and forthcoming changes on the Russian touristic market. This enables to conclude that the resort tax law does not include any practical premises neither for proper preparation of the experiment nor for the successful course of the experiment. The foreign experience shows that tourist tax is of the renting nature, it originates from the growing welfare and increase in touristic activity. Tourist taxes are not the resource for the development of the touristic infrastructure, and it is indirectly confirmed by their low budgetary efficiency. There are no economic premises here in Russia for the steady growth of the demand for tourist services; therefore the resort tax acquires a character of a confiscatory tax for guests of large accommodation objects. Thus there is a high opportunity of receiving negative effect from the resort tax introduction experiment in four regions of our country.

The authors present an overview of the main approaches to assessing the social and economic development of Russian regions. There are different types of assessment – administrative, ranking and scientific ones. Each type of assessment has its own parameters – the subject of assessment, frequency, tools, specific methodology, and others. The authors stress the necessity of a more systemic approach to assessing the socio-economic development of the Russian Federation based on the principles of sustainable development.

The article is devoted to the phenomenon of a money surrogate, introduced in the form of a bitcoin, a popular cryptocurrency. The purpose of the research is to study the influence of the price-per-unit value of the cryptocurrency on the indicator of the market capitalization of the bitcoin cryptocurrency through correlation-regression analysis. As a result of the research, the author becomes the first to prove the direct dependence of the mentioned indicators, namely, a strong relationship between the price per unit of the cryptocurrency and the indicator of the bitcoin cryptocurrency market capitalization.