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This paper examines the impact of new business actors (foreign direct investment, Russian big business, and small business) on the emergence of rule of law in five Russian regions. These business actors generally have an interest in fostering rule of law and could be expected to exert influence over regional government as they become larger tax payers to regional budgets and generate more jobs. The research shows that there are problems linking business demands for rule of law (to the extent that they exist) to actual policy because of Russia’s tax system and the inability of the business community to build a sufficient coalition of business actors. Preliminary, anecdotal results suggest that there has been little improvement in the rule of law situation in the regions under study, though further research is necessary for more conclusive results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is devoted to the investigation of Russian corporate pension funds as a relatively new financial institution and defining the reasons of their poor development. Corporate pension funds are the most widespread type of non-state social funds in the world. Non-state pension funds first occurred in Russia in the late 1990's. Large corporations started establishing their own corporate funds in the form of non-state pension fundы at the restricted number of enterprises of oil and gas, power engineering and metallurgic industries in the beginning of the XXI century. These industries were the most profitable thus allowing to organize such funds to provide social guarantees for their employees. Corporate social provision is one of the aspects of corporate social responsibility. The latter is an urgent issue for all countries. The monitoring of all non-state pension funds is provided by the Bank of Russia. This research is based on the analysis of statistical data for non-state pension funds from 2000 to 2015, corporate funds included. The authors have revealed the stages and trends of their development as well as their sectoral structure. The research has shown that non-state pension fund development stopped after the financial crisis of 2008. The article determines the factors crucial for these funds development perspectives, which the authors have grouped into legal and financial. The paper proves the importance of adopting regulatory documents specifying the operation of corporate pension funds and standardizing social reporting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]