Abstract

Economic science considers human capital as a fundamental factor that stimulates the accumulation of productive capital and, accordingly, has a positive effect on economic growth. Improving labor force quality can lead to an increase in the well-being of an individual due to an increase in his labor cost. An increase in public welfare will affect the economic growth of the state as a whole. The above conditions the relevance and timeliness of this work, aimed at illustration of human capital concept (subject of the study), as well as determination of human capital place in theoretical economic growth models and empirical mechanisms of its influence on growth. A review of theoretical works analyzing human capital concept and its relationship with economic growth rates aimed at achieving this goal. The study was conducted at the IPEI Center for the Study of Central Banking Problems as part of the RANEPA state task for 2022 using relevant academic literature and as the major source of information and methods such as descriptive, statistical, comparative analysis, as well as systematic approach. Analysis of human capital concept allows concluding that this indicator represents a set of innate and acquired through investment knowledge, skills and practical skills that determine labor productivity and future income of an employee. The mechanisms of human capital impact on economic growth include the relationship between growth and education level, the impact of human capital on technological progress, the relationship between health indicators and economic growth rates, the growth effect of public spending on education and health, and, finally, the effect of human capital in terms of poverty reduction. In the future, this review can serve as a starting point for an empirical study of investments in human capital in Russia within the framework of models with uncertainty and individual heterogeneous discounting.

Abstract

Relevance. The issue of assessing the effectiveness of spending on housing and utility services in Russia remains underexplored. The volume of public funds allocated to the “Housing and Utility Services” sector nationwide has grown 60.2% in 2020 compared to 2016; compared to the total government spending, the increase is from 3.2% in 2016 to 3.7% in 2020. Relatively high government spending on housing and utility services in Russia is associated with numerous sectoral problems – primarily, severe deterioration of fixed assets. The utilities infrastructure continues to deteriorate in literally every region of the country. The goal of this study is to assess the effectiveness of the extended government’s spending on the housing and utility services in the Russian Federation, to develop recommendations for changing the spending structure and volume.

The of the study is the budget spending of the extended government of the Russian Federation for housing and utility services.

The general research methodology consists of critical analysis and reasoning, a hypothetico-deductive method, case studies, generalization analysis and extrapolation (interpolation) of results.

The main findings of the study are as follows:

approaches were identified and model tools developed to assess the impact of the volume and structure of government spending on the efficiency of housing and utility services;

Russian and international practice of legislative regulation and financing of the housing and utility services sector was analyzed;

based on the formulated hypotheses on the conditions and factors affecting the efficiency of the housing and utility services in Russia and abroad, econometric modeling was carried out and the results were interpreted to test the hypotheses;

proposals and recommendations were formulated to change the structure and volume of government spending on the housing and utility services.

The findings of the study can be used in the interests of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of Finance of Russia for the purpose of improving approaches to managing the costs of housing and utility services in the Russian Federation.