1999. vol. 3. No. 2

In all countries where there are strong and stable financial markets, futures trading plays a very important role. Portfolios of market participants, which can be made up of only one stock assets, in many respects lose portfolios made up of stock assets and futures contracts. This paper shows the possibility of applying Delta hedging in the Russian derivatives market. Delta hedging is one of the most common methods of protecting a portfolio from market risks and making a profit. There are also some results of mathematical research that can be useful in hedging and evaluating futures contracts.

The aim of this work is to study the role of external debt in generating the economic crisis in Latin America in the 80s. Special attention is paid to the dependence of the economic development of the countries of the region and the impact of external debt on them from the peculiarities of the structure of the national economy and the financial market. The article considers the processes of accumulation of external and internal debt in the countries of the region and their servicing, as well as ways of financial and economic stabilization in conditions of high external debt.

In the work on the basis of real information the concentration and differentiation of monetary income by population groups of the Russian Federation are investigated. It is proposed to use not only formal quantile, but also so-called "income" groups to characterize the distribution of population, and to characterize the ratio of "income" groups of population - the stratification coefficient. For the first time in the study of monetary incomes of the population, the gerfindal concentration coefficient was used in the analysis.

Over the past two decades, public utilities (gas, electricity, railway, telecommunications, water supply), an integral part of which are natural monopoly segments, have undergone major changes.  They went in the direction of deregulation, introduction of competition, modernization of functions and methods of regulation. Reforms have begun in Russia, but the reform models have not yet acquired completed forms. In this regard, trends in the development of theoretical concepts underlying practical transformations are of great interest. In this article we want to draw attention to those fundamentally important shifts in the theory of natural monopoly and the Economics of regulation, which formed the basis and prepared the ongoing transformation in recent decades.

The journal continues to publish a course of lectures on models of macroeconomics, which for a number of years is read by Professor Smirnov A.D. in the first year of master's degree at the State University of the Higher school of Economics. Lectures can be used by students and postgraduates of economic faculties of universities to study economic theory, macroeconomic modeling and problems of transition economy.