Financial education is one of the tools for improving financial literacy and shaping the financial culture of the population. The transition from financial literacy to financial culture requires combining the capabilities of all participants in this process. This article is devoted to the study of aspects of the universities’ activities in implementing the mechanism of population’s financial education. As a result of the study, the authors clarified the meaning of the financial education mechanism. The areas of university participation in the implementation of the financial education mechanism for the population are identified. These include: training specialists in the field of financial education; developing methodological support for financial education; organizing the process of educating citizens in the area of personal finance management; ensuring the development of the system and financial education’s infrastructure; and training volunteers for financial education. As a key result, the article presents a draft model for organizing a Consulting and Financial Education Center for the population, as well as the organizational foundations for its establishment on the basis of a regional university (I.N. Ulyanov Chuvash State University).

Social risks, intensifying due to high income differentiation of the population and uneven territorial development of Russia, increase the relevance of research aimed at finding ways to involve companies in solving social problems in their regions of operation, clarifying theoretical provisions and developing methodological tools for social investment. The article proposes, for the first time, an approach to assessing the social inclusiveness/exclusiveness of companies. The purpose of the work is to justify an approach to measuring the social orientation of investments as a trend in the development of Russian companies. This study confirms the need to address the problem of aligning two groups of benefits when implementing socially responsible investments: corporate benefits, which characterize the company’s exclusiveness, and social benefits, which characterize its inclusiveness and arise from the use of its financial resources to implement social development projects in its region of operation. The article shows that the meaning of the term “socially responsible investment” is not clearly defined and quantitative studies are limited by the availability of data for assessment. The possibilities of using data on securities issuance and companies’ investments in socially oriented projects are considered. A company’s position in the ESG rating is used as an indirect indicator of socially responsible investments. An approach to assessing a company’s social inclusiveness, which occurs when investments are directed toward developing the region of operation and its social exclusiveness, corresponding to its orientation toward using the financial resources to solve its own social problems, is proposed. Testing of the approach showed the heterogeneity and instability in assessments and determined the direction of further research, i.e. identifying industry and regional characteristics of social inclusiveness/exclusiveness.

This paper presents a thorough analysis of the effects of international sanctions on the financial and banking sectors of the Russian Federation between 2014 and 2025, with a particular focus on the implications for the domestic market. The paper highlights key areas of the impact, including disconnection from the SWIFT system, freezing of Russian banks’ assets, denying access to international payment systems, and restrictions on cross-border transactions. Based on statistical data, the paper reveals changes in the structure of bank assets, the evolving role of the MIR payment system, increased loan rates, and changes in consumer behavior. It also examines the consequences of sanctions for the currency market, such as volatility of the ruble exchange rate, the increase in key interest rates, the decrease in the liquid component part of the National Welfare Fund, and the growth of household debt. Particular attention is paid to the risks of economic security erosion, including impediments to the free flow of cross-border payments, the blocking of gold and currency reserves, and complications in international settlements even with friendly countries. A system of strategic goals is proposed to enhance stability of the financial system, including the development of domestic sources of funds, technological independence, and a new framework for international settlements. The material is supported by a rich set of analytical and visual tools and can serve as a basis for developing anti-crisis measures and long-term planning documents for the Russian Federation.

Preface to the Еhematic Issue

Forecasting budget revenues is an important task for government agencies involved in budget planning. While preparing official forecasts, simple computations are often used. However, it might lead to inaccurate forecasts. The article is devoted to the development of a tax revenues forecasting system with high predictive power which could be used by government agencies, including those in developing countries. Our system automatically generates a large number of various econometric specifications, estimates them, and combines the forecasts they produce. The system uses time series models with exogenous regressors (causal time series models). The key exogenous variables in these models are various proxies for taxable bases, the model tax rate, as well as proxies for tax proceeds themselves. Before combining models, several of them could be selected based on their quality, i.e., how well they correspond to the presumed theoretical assumptions, how high their predicting power is, and how easy their estimates are to interpret. The system is tested on data for the Republic of Tajikistan for annual proceeds from VAT, corporate income tax, and personal income tax. Before testing, we analyze official data from open sources to obtain a list of relevant proxies for tax bases, and to develop a method for calculating model tax rates. Then we proceed to forecasting. By comparing the (out-of-sample) system’s forecast with the forecast of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Tajikistan, we show that for 2023, the system gives a lower forecasting error.

The purpose of this study is to find empirical evidence of long-run equilibrium relationship between the personal savings ratio and several factors that, in the author’s opinion, determine this ratio. To achieve this purpose, a panel for 82 regions of the Russian Federation for the years 2000–2022 was assembled on the basis of official statistics data. In the descriptive part of the paper, we examined theories of personal savings, saving behavior of the population, the impact of personal savings on economic growth and the reasons why regional authorities should improve the climate for personal savings and growth of the working-age population in their regions. We used the PMG method to estimate our empirical ARDL model and found that the personal savings ratio is mainly determined by the age composition of the regional population and regional inflation, while money income and household final consumption are robust control variables. There is a long-run equilibrium relationship between these variables.

The article presents a review of publications devoted to the approaches to assessing the impact of external shocks on the economy in general and on certain aspects of taxation in particular. It considers both studies that assess this impact by analyzing macroeconomic indicators (less often — budget indicators) and building econometric models (mainly SVAR and VAR models are used in this case), and studies in which various authors propose their own indicators to assess this impact (most often they are either sustainability indicators or stress indicators). Special attention is paid to publications the subject of which is the impact of new challenges on the tax system. A separate block includes publications in which the above issues are considered in relation to the Russian tax system. These are not only scientific articles on the topic, but also documents of international organizations, such as the International Monetary Fund, OECD, World Bank, etc. In addition, the article provides an overview of publications of foreign scientific institutes and research centers. Sanctions imposed on the economy of the Russian Federation are a particular case of an external shock. Thus, a review of publications assessing the impact of new challenges (by the example of sanctions) on the tax system of the Russian Federation is presented. The authors conclude that to assess the impact of new challenges on the tax system it is more advisable to use indicators based on statistical tax reporting.

The article analyzes changes in the financial situation of large families in the period from 2018 to 2022 using the data of the Rosstat’s Comprehensive Observation of Living Conditions of the Population for 2018 and 2022. The prevalence of various deprivations among large households and households with children in general is estimated. Changes in household income relative to the poverty line and deprivation level between 2018 and 2022 are calculated. It is shown that despite the improvement in financial status between 2018 and 2022, large families continue to experience significant risks of poverty and deprivation. To assess the factors affecting the incomes of large households, Rosstat data of the Sample Survey of Population Income and Participation in Social Programs (VNDN-2022) were used. Regression analysis shows that employment of adult members of a large family, improvement of their education and qualification level will contribute to the growth of average per capita family income relative to the poverty line. The article outlines proposals for increasing the labor potential of large families, improving their financial situation and reducing poverty.

The article is devoted to the current organizational and functional model of state and municipal financial control. The author analyzes the powers of external and internal state and municipal financial control bodies and concludes that they are similar. He also summarizes the results of the analysis of the execution of budgetary powers by state and municipal financial control bodies, which are executive bodies of the subjects of the Russian Federation or local administrations, for the period from 2018 to 2023, conducted annually by the Federal Treasury. This allows to identify systemic problems that require improvement of the organizational and functional model of state and municipal financial control. The article contains proposals for the transformation of the existing control model.