Continuation of the chronicle of events related to the Munich conspiracy of 1938.

The author’s analysis of UN demographic statistics revealed two internal problems that objectively impede to the BRICS countries to become new drivers of global economic growth — reduction of economically active population and increase of the social burden on one working person in the form of reducing the potential support ratio. Projected labour shortage could trigger serious socio-economic upheavals in the nearest future.

The authors have studied the possibility of taking into account the human rationality factor in the analysis of global problems of demography and energy. For this purpose, analogues of chemical kinetics and the idea of human communities as an open thermodynamic system were applied. The demography of sapientation was divided into two conventional energy zones — northern and southern, which differ in climatic and geophysical conditions. The sapientation process was formalized by correlating the number of creative and educated people with the amount of external energy they convert into new valuable information. The sapientation kinetics was modeled completing the formalism of the act of a person’s birth with a stage of his education requiring the involvement of at least one teacher from among educated people. The second-order kinetic equation, describing the growth of an equal population of men and women of reproductive age, was transformed into an equation of the third and higher orders. The stationary solution of these equations determines the optimal demography for sustainable noospheric development of the population in accordance with its education index. Real and durable solutions to the demographic and energy problems are proposed.

The article focuses on the institutional causes of the digital economy development. The concept of a “start-up company” and distinctive features of such companies are explored — how they differ from other companies, the reason for their wide expansion and geography of their distribution. Start-up companies are target residents of the Skolkovo innovation center. The article reveals the main reasons contributing to development of these companies or to the choice of geographic location. In conclusion, the main institutional barriers to development of ecosystem start-ups in Russia are identified.

Increasing competitiveness of the Russian economy is a strategic task that ensures national security of the country. One of the most important directions of its development is accelerated innovative development of Russia. Foreign experience confirms the high effectiveness of international strategic partnerships while forming a sustainable innovation policy. Creating a system of state regulation of the process of their generation will become a factor of sustainable development of the country’s economy on the basis of state, science and business cooperation. Active development of strategic partnerships based on the EAEU and BRICS requires elaboration of a strategy for developing Russia’s international innovation policy.

The present study examines the causes and consequences of bankruptcy for clients of brokerage companies in Russia, as well as assesses measures taken to overcome the problems of brokerage companies bankruptcy, which actually lead to investors financial ruin. The relevance of the study is based on the need of this issue to be regulated by the state in order to protect the investors’ interests, to develop and stimulate the financial market, and also to increase the level of Russians’ financial literacy. The article identifies the main causes and consequences of brokerage companies’ bankruptcy.

According to the authors, external and internal challenges of Russia, its geopolitical position, as well as Jesuit Wester Russophobia encourage our country to join the group of undisputed leaders of global economic, social and political development. At the same time, preservation of production relations, existing in our socio-economic system now, is a powerful brake on the way of scientific and technological progress and causes significant underdevelopment of the societyэs productive forces. Such a state of productive force does not provide necessary qualitative leap in the social development of Russia and creates unsatisfactory prospects for its safe, sovereign and holistic existence. A systematic approach to the nature and essence of the productive force proves that the main and the single productive force of our society can only be a man, his immediate work. At the same time, the scientific-technological revolution (STR) and the process of conditionally digital socialization (education) are the dominant conditions for effective development of productive force. However, the lack of balance between individuals’ education and upbringing inevitably leads to manifestation of scientific and technical extremism, which can create conditions for destruction of the biosocium itself. One of the main results of scientific-technological revolution is also transformation of scientific and technical production into the first stage of social reproduction, while industrial-manufacturing production is postponed to the second stage. In addition, the key to scientific-technical leap is creating conditions for effective early identification of individuals with the highest level of biological sociality inclinations (with an increased ability to education and training) and their subsequent highly effective socialization (first of all, we are speaking about development of scientific and creative thinking). The main scientific-technical and socio-political condition, providing maximum efficiency of socialization of such individuals and transformation of scientific-technical production into accelerator of social reproduction, is bringing in equivalence production relations and the productive force of society.

Opening address of editor-in-chief.

On August 12, 2018 in the Kazakh city of Aktau presidents of Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan signed the Convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea. This fundamental document creates a new legal regime of the Caspian Sea that meets modern requirements and aims at further intensification of the comprehensive interaction of coastal countries. The Caspian were going to sign this Convention for more than 20 years…

This article contains the results of joint scientific and diplomatic work of the two research groups — from the Chinese and Russian side: under the leadership of Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China (RDCY) and Counselor to the President of the Russian Federation. The uniqueness of this publication lies in the fact that a reader has the opportunity to observe the joint work including analysis of the Sino-Russian financial and economic cooperation benefits and “bottlenecks” of scientists, heads of leading institutions and officials in real time and in the process of coordinating the positions of the parties, to understand the complexity of diplomatic work and to assess the importance of agreements and results having been achieved.