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The European North of Russia (ENR) is considered as a socio-economic area with a wide range of the economic and population settlement organizational forms. Its Arctic zone holds 6.7 times more people than the non-arctic area. Negative migration dynamics is observed. As compared to the 1989 Soviet census, by 2013 the population of the macro-region had decreased by almost 1.5 million people. Spatial economic policy in the ENR is conducted in the same manner as in already explored areas. The ENR's main strategic direction is to preserve and modernize its organizational forms on the basis of scientific and technological achievements and to improve internal and inter-regional relations. The ENR can serve as a testing ground for promotion of innovative experience in the development and deep processing of natural resources and new approaches to the territorial organization of production in a challenging natural environment.

Basing on statistics published by the Russian Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat), the article examines the regional performance of the Presidential Decrees of May 7, 2012 that stipulate measures to increase wages in the public sector, as well as to create and modernize 25 million high-performance workplaces. It is shown that the documents adopted by the government in pursuance of the Decrees underestimated the level of regional differentiation in Russia, local budgets and the specifics of manufacturing, which has led to negative consequences in some subjects of the Federation. The article justifies the need to adjust the share of liabilities attributable to regional budgets due to a slowdown in economic growth and to account for the imbalance that appears with a sharp increase in the deficit and public debt. It is demonstrated that spatial determinants highly differentiate the quantity of high-performance workplaces in regions and their share in the total number of jobs. In order to meet the set targets, it is necessary to take measures to create and modernize high-performance workplaces with regard to the specifics of manufacturing in regions.

The paper analyses the quality of strategies of socio-economic development for regions of Russia. It also considers the perspectives opened by these strategies being available for regional research, namely, for evaluating the appropriateness of optimistic expectations and the reasonability of regions' economic growth forecasts. The article creates a growth forecast for Russia's economy from isolated regional forecasts, estimates its basic parameters and represents it as an outcome of «collective prediction» of regions that is to be verified. This empirical study is based on the available strategies of socio–economic development of the subjects of the Russian Federation up to 2020–2030. The method includes the following steps: collection and systematization of strategies' forecasts; transformation of expected outcomes of strategies into compatible indicators and their consolidation across federal districts; comparative analysis of the consolidated forecasts with the all-round forecast of Russia's economic development, made on the basis of a multiregional input–output model. It is revealed that optimistic growth forecasts for the GRP may often be overestimated and not coordinated with investment forecasts. In order to evaluate the achievability of forecasted regional economic development indices, we used a spatial input–output model that is capable to produce a forecast in view of resource constraints, interregional and intersectoral interactions on the scale of the national economy. Moderate forecasts are inherent mostly in highly developed regions. Excessive optimistic projections over a balanced forecast may serve as an indicator of interregional competition for investment. Scarcity of labor is evaluated by comparing consolidated regional demographic forecasts with the official demographic forecast by the Russian Federal State Statistics Service.

The article gives a theoretical and methodological justification for a complex approach to institutional maintenance of a region as a subject of social and economic development in a federal state. The complex approach uses a multi-faceted methodology of regional research that includes subject-functional, system, organizational and strategic analysis tools. This paper proposes a hypothesis that the targets (target benchmarks) for the basic subjects of social and economic development of a region which define its functions are potential and real institutions, and that the concept and methodology identifying these targets can be used to create target institutions and institutes. The author's methodology for ordering institutional maintenance of regional development is designed. Novelty and validity of the proposed methodology for institutions and institutes formation are provided by systematic and functional approaches applied to a region as a subject of strategic development in an integrated manner, and the targets (interests) of the basic elements in a regional system accounted on multiple levels. The author makes recommendations on institutional maintenance ordering using the matrix method.

A comparative analysis of workforce productivity data in Russian regions is carried out. The paper discovers possibilities to strengthen regional factors inducing a rise in workforce productivity. It presents results from the analysis of the dynamics and interregional differentiation of workforce productivity based on statistics published by the Russian Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) and estimates of workforce productivity levels in regions and aggregate types of economic activity. Interregional differences in workforce productivity levels exhibit a tendency to decrease. An assessment of hourly productivity by types of economic activity revealed the most significant interregional differences in mineral production, construction, and agriculture. The article provides results from the comparative analysis of existing jobs in Russia in terms of their industrial distribution, workforce productivity, and salary levels. The paper gives a critical overview of the method to determine high-performance workplaces developed by Rosstat. We show that the growth rate in the number of high-performance workplaces calculated with this method is loosely related to the dynamics of workforce productivity and real income of the population. Directions to promote regional factors that increase workforce productivity suggested in government decrees are examined. Basing on interregional migration data in Russia, we show enabling and constraining effects of measures designed to enhance labor mobility.

The Russian economy has entered a systemic crisis due to the exhaustion of quasi-market model. In the course of history, countries overcame it through a revolutionary transition to the «razdatok» economy. However, regularities of market-razdatok global development give the possibility of an evolutionary transition to an open access regime by integrating market and razdatok institutions. We use the Razdatok theory and build a periodic table of the institutional development of Russia. The article contains a comparative institutional analysis of the two transition periods based on quasi-market. We give a forecast of how a «contract razdatok», which is the basis of the institutional matrix of an open access regime, can appear in Russia and assess the prospects for introduced institutional norms and rules.

The article identifies the dynamics and main trends of modern social, ethnic and demographic processes in Kamchatka Krai. Crucial socio–demographic and ethnic problems of the region (depopulation, psychological experiences of native peoples, and their poor adaptation to the market economy) are defined as typical for the Arctic regions of the Russian Far East. The authors have specified the tasks of the preventive migration policy in the region. They have made recommendations on how to regulate the employment of the indigenous population of Kamchatka Krai and preserve their ethnic and cultural identity.