This article looks at recently published research on social media consumers. Five topics are highlighted: consumer digital culture, responses to digital advertising, the impact of social media on consumer behavior, mobile environments, and online rumors (WOM). The articles examines how consumers experience, are influenced and are influenced by the digital environment they are in as part of their daily lives. Much remains to be understood, and existing knowledge tends to focus disproportionately on WOM, which is only part of the digital consumer experience. Several avenues for future research have been proposed to encourage researchers to consider a wider range of phenomena.

Due to the rapid growth of the market of scientific and technical products and the high level of competition, market appropriate solution becomes finding ways to commercialization of research products. The article substantiates the need for accelerated modernization of the Kazakh economy based on increasing the effectiveness of scientific research and introduction into industrial production of research results while diversifying the ways of commercializing R&D results. In this article, the authors analyze the current state of Kazakh science. As a result of the research, a new mechanism for multi-criteria selection of promising R&D results of scientific organizations has been proposed and a system of organizational and economic support for their commercialization has been substantiated. The results will be useful in the practical activities of both scientific and industrial organizations.

In modern conditions for Kazakhstan, it becomes important to choose a development model that would be the most optimal and effective. When developing a model of economic policy, special attention should be paid to the choice of a system of indicators that could adequately describe macroeconomic processes as a whole and their interconnections. At the same time, economists argue that the implementation of the model approach can become the basis for strategic decisions only in a stable economic situation and when in the period under review the change in the cost structure of GDP is not distorted by high inflation. Therefore, in modern conditions of economic development, in our opinion, it is of interest to study the relationship between economic growth and the level of current and threshold inflation. This study substantiates the role of the threshold inflation level and proposes an equation of the functional dependence of this indicator on the main economic indicators. The necessary conditions for the implementation of the inflation targeting regime are disclosed. It is concluded that in conditions of commodity dependence, new effective monetary policy instruments are required.

This article provides an overview of the energy potential of Central Asian economies and in particular, the power sector of Tajikistan, with a special emphasis on the potential usage of coal since water availability for hydropower in the region depends on seasons and is already affected by climate change. With these restrictions, coal arises as to the economic alternative and coal-fired plants are considered in the country as a tool for development and new coal-fired plants are under construction and development of new coalmines is also proposed. The objective of this article is to achieve profitable capital investment in a 250 MW coal-fired thermal power plant situated in east part of Tajikistan. In this context, the article applies a mathematical model to estimate the quantitative advantages of coal alternatives. The cost analysis of the plant was carried out on the basis of total capital investment, operating cost (i.e. coal feedstock, maintenance and labour, and cost of pumping power) and revenue. Furthermore, the article discusses the main concerns of the government of Tajikistan in sustaining its economic development, and finally, describes the future role that hydro-coal power will play in this development.

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