This paper examines the economic efficiency of Russian special economic zones (SEZs) established by federal authorities since 2005. The results are mixed: the payback of SEZs is low, but they continue to attract residents; SEZs have greater attractiveness for foreign investment, but their sectoral structure is fundamentally no better than the country-wide structure; SEZs' enterprises have higher labour productivity than the country, but mainly owing to their recent creation. The common bottlenecks of SEZ development are the instability of legislation on SEZs, the low level of federal authorities' activity in SEZ development before the economic crisis, competition with other preferential regimes for investors and the long period of searching for the optimal system of SEZ management. Differences in the efficiency of particular SEZs are explained by the peculiarities of the territories where SEZs are established. SEZs are successful if they are created on sites that enjoy a favourable geographic position and in regions that have advanced levels of industrial development.

This article analyses how the role of border regions has changed in the regional policies of Russia and European countries since the early 1990s. The study aims to estimate the efficiency of Russia’s regional policy with regard to border regions (its completeness, a focus on actual problems, etc.) and to compare it with that of European counterparts. The article relies on publications on the experience of EU countries, earlier contributions from Russian researchers, federal regulations, and statistics on the regional distribution of federal investment in fixed assets. It is shown that the federal border region policy is largely a reflection of the features and problems of Russia’s regional policy as a whole. Currently, the development of cross-border cooperation is affected more strongly by national security concerns than by economic growth considerations. Cross-border cooperation is no longer part of the regional policy. Border regions, however, have received an increasing proportion of federal investments in recent years, particularly, amid the reunification with the Crimea. The study calls for better coordination between different areas of the federal socio-economic policy on border regions and closer attention to border regions’ foreign economic ties, particularly, within the implementation of the Strategy for the Spatial Development of the Russian Federation.

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The article considers the specifics of Russian foreign direct investment outflows in 2018–the first half of 2020. Three main reasons for the new stagnation of Russian foreign investment expansion are identified: 1) the strengthening of “sanctions war” with the West after the election of Vladimir Putin for the 4th presidential term; 2) the slowdown in the global economy in 2018–2019 against the background of relatively low prices for hydrocarbons and other raw materials exported from Russia; and 3) the crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. These factors resulted in a reduction of both outward foreign direct investment stocks by Russian MNEs (partially due to revaluation of their assets after the collapse of the ruble rate), and a decrease in investments of wealthy Russians in foreign real estate as well as pseudo-foreign investment because of the regular attempts to conduct de-offshorization. Based on a study conducted at INION within the framework of the international program for studying MNEs from emerging markets, a list of leading Russian non-financial MNEs by the end of 2019 is presented. Further prospects of Russian direct investment are shown at the end of the article.