Over the past decade, African nations have seen substantial economic growth and rising global influence, yet carbon emissions in the region have increased since 1995. In response, several African countries have implemented environmental taxes to curb emissions and prevent environmental degradation. This study investigates the impact of environmental taxes and economic growth on carbon emissions in AFRICA-13 countries, using nonlinear quantile regression, FMOLS, and DOLS methods on panel data from 1995 to 2023. The findings reveal a significant relationship between environmental taxes, economic growth, and carbon emissions. Specifically, the negative and significant coefficients for environmental taxes suggest that higher taxes are effective in reducing carbon emissions. On the other hand, the positive and significant coefficients for manufacturing and national income – indicators of economic growth – indicate that as economic growth increases, so do carbon emissions, aligning with the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis. While AFRICA-13 countries have implemented policies to address environmental challenges, the link between economic growth and increased emissions underscores the ongoing challenge of balancing development with environmental sustainability. This study provides new insights into the effectiveness of environmental taxes, demonstrating that they serve as effective counter-incentives for polluting activities and contribute to emission reductions. The experiences of the AFRICA-13 countries offer valuable lessons for global policymakers, illustrating how fiscal policy can be leveraged to rebalance the energy mix and promote the use of cleaner alternative energy sources while addressing the dual objectives of economic growth and environmental protection.

According to the Ricardian Equivalence theory, private consumption spending is unaffected by the debt vs tax mode of deficit financing. The study re-examines the “Ricardian Equivalence” hypothesis in Russia by using private consumption spending as the dependent variable and government expenditure, government borrowing, tax, and income as the independent variables. The Ricardian position offers an intriguing issue in the Russian setting. If the Russian economy exhibits Ricardian equivalence, the private sector will shift its spending habits and boost its savings, rendering the policy reforms ineffectual. The ARDL and NARDL models used yearly time series data between 1988 and 2022. The results refute the Ricardian Equivalence and support the Keynesian perspective that financing the fiscal deficit (debt vs tax) does affect private consumption spending. The estimates support a strong long-run and short-run link between the variables. Estimates confirm that tax and borrowing mode of deficit financing negatively influences Russia’s consumption spending. It shows that short-run disequilibrium converges to long-run equilibrium in the ARDL model at a rate of 85.3% and in the NARDL model at a rate of 28.6%. The study concludes that the deficit financing strategy should be carefully devised and supported. Implementing an expansionary fiscal policy will influence the overall private demand of Russia. A tendency to rely too much on tax and borrowings as a financing technique negatively influences private consumption spending. This study contributes to the pool of literature on “Ricardian Equivalence” and deficit financing by providing new data on how to formulate fiscal policies that are efficient at financing deficits and sustainable by making prudent expenditures without endangering the nation’s private consumption.

В современных условиях важнейшим фактором эффективного устойчивого развития территорий является их способность перейти на модель экономики, в которой главными источниками роста являются креативность и интеллектуальная собственность. Насколько успешным и с какой скоростью будет происходить переход на новую траекторию развития зависит от включенности в этот процесс локальной идентичности, выполняющей роль скрепы, оформляющей территориальную целостность. В результате анализа кейсов креативных кластеров городов Урала и Сибири с учетом связи с локальной идентичностью авторы разработали их типологию, приняв в качестве критерия неодинаковость в значимости материальной и символической компонент, составляющих локальный конструкт идентичности. На основе выделенных групп были предложены три модели креативных кластеров: «консервации», «трансформации», «генерации» в зависимости от выбора локальной стратегии в достижении целей социально-экономического развития территорий. Предложенная концепция может быть востребована органами регионального и местного самоуправления, на которые возложена функция формирования креативных индустрий и локальной идентичности местного социума.

Currently, Russia is going through a global transformation in the field of waste management, which is mainly caused by the exhaustion of the capacities of existing landfills. The country’s goal is to reduce landfill and ensure 36 % recycling of all municipal solid waste (MSW) by 2024. Meanwhile, the discussion about the choice of disposal methods continues. We propose to look at the choice of the optimal MSW management strategy at the regional level through the prism of its total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In this regard, the purpose of the article is to determine the total carbon footprint of the regional MSW management system in order to consider the “contribution” of each of the methods of waste management and make the considered criterion suitable for assessing the sustainability of the whole regional waste management system under various scenarios of its development. To achieve this goal, the methodology of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was used to assess the current situation in the field of MSW management in the Sverdlovsk region. Further, the study developed the conditions for three industry development scenarios (basic, inertial, innovative); substantiated the factors of direct and prevented GHG emissions; calculated GHG emissions from the MSW management sector in the Sverdlovsk region for 2023-2030 for each of the three scenarios. The calculations showed that, by 2030, the basic scenario (“as is”, business-as-usual) has the maximum carbon footprint of 1558.5 thousand tonnes of CO2-eq. The innovative scenario has minimum net emissions of 82.6 thousand tonnes of CO2-eq. by creating a full-fledged separate waste collection and recycling more waste. The findings can be useful in the formation of regional strategies for waste management, considering GHG emissions.