Aleksei V. Bogoviz Independent Researcher, Moscow, Russia
Svetlana V. Lobova Altai State University, Barnaul, Russia
Alexander N. Alekseev Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, Moscow, Russia
Lubinda Haabazoka Director of The University of Zambia Graduate School of Business, Zambia
1 Introduction
The 21st century is the age of the digital economy. New digital technologies led to formation of the digital segments of sectorial markets – these segments actively used the possibilities of digitalization and featured electronic economic operations (non-cash payments, electronic communications). In this period, the digital economy was treated as a vector of growth and development (i.e., a part) of the post-industrial economy.
After this, digital technologies became very popular and were adapted to all economic processes. This led to the systemic digital transformation of economy and the transition to a completely new type of economic system – digital economy. Thus, deep changes were observed in all economic spheres. The social sphere transformed into the information society and the knowledge society, in which knowledge is the highest value, and economic subjects are susceptible to new information and technologies.
The business environment performed a transition to electronic (digital) business, which actively uses the leading technologies for full automatization of business processes and the global product sale via the Internet. The regulatory environment became electronic as well – it reached a high level of automatization of state monitoring, control, regulation, and provision of state services.
The described process of digitalization acquired a global scale and determined the new foundations of functioning and development of economy. However, scientific study of this process is behind the economic practice – which causes a set of problems. Firstly, there is no clear scientific idea of the essence of the current changes, which does not allow for their qualitative (positive or negative) treatment.
Secondly, the factors of formation and development of the digital economy are not clear – which reduces the effectiveness of its state management and creates barriers on the path of forecasting the future perspectives of development of the modern economic systems. Thirdly, uncertainty of the causal connections of formation and development of the digital economy hinders the start of the process of digitalization and involvement of developing countries in the global digital competition (e.g., the least progressive countries of Africa) and formation of the global digital economy, slowing down the growth and development of the global economy.
The working hypothesis of this research is that the above problems are caused by imperfection of the existing scientific and methodological approach to studying the digital economy. Thus, it is necessary to develop a new, better approach, which would allow for systemic solution of these problems. The purpose of this chapter is to develop a scientific and methodological approach to studying the digital economy as a modern type of economic system, which would allow for its systemic research and for completion of the existing gaps in its scientific concept.
2 Materials and Method
Digital economy – as a modern type of economic system – was studied in the works Alpidovskaya and Popkova (2019), Andronova et al. (2019), Fedotova et al. (2020), Glazova (2015), Inshakova and Bogoviz (2020),Litvinova (2015), Natsubidze (2015), Pankova (2015), Popkova (2019), Popkova (2017), Popkova et al. (2020), Popkova and Gulzat (2020a), Popkova and Gulzat (2020b), Popkova et al. (2018), Popkova and Sergi (2018), Popkova and Sergi (2019), Ragulina (2019), Ragulina et al. (2019), Sergi (2019), Shulus et al. (2020), and Stolyarov et al. (2020).
The content analysis of the above publications shows that the existing scientific and methodological approach to studying the digital economy is based on the neoclassical and Neo-Keynesian economic theories. Though these theories are different by all basic provisions and develop separately, the essence of the both approaches – during the study of the digital economy – is brought down to studying the roles of state and the specifics of the digital economy regulation.
The neo-classical economic theory points out the necessity for reducing state regulation and creating favorable and effective “rules of the game” and conditions for the digital economy development under the influence of the market mechanism. Contrary to it, Neo-Keynesian theory requires the increase of state regulation. A completely new alternative is the neo-institutional theory, which allows presenting the digital economy as a social institution, and thus moving attention from state regulation to the natural market processes.
It is offered to create a new scientific and methodological approach to studying the digital economy based on the neo-institutional theory. The comparative analysis of the existing and the offered new approaches is shown in Table 1.1.
Table 1.1:Comparative analysis of the existing and new scientific and methodological approaches to studying the digital economy.
| Criterion of comparison | The existing approach, based on the neoclassical and Neo-Keynesian economic theories | The offered new approach, based on the neo-institutional economic theory |
| Scientific treatment of the digital economy | macro-economic object of state management | macro-economic social institution |
| Studied aspects of the digital economy | goals, factors, and consequences of state management of the digital economy | Social processes (connections, relations, practices, and experience), which stimulate the formation and development of the digital economy |
| Stages of the digital economy, which are to be studied | formed digital economy, at the stage of its development | all stages, from formation of the digital economy to its further development, which allows determining its genesis |
| Determined processes | external processes, only result is visible | external and internal processes, causal connections are visible |
| Assumption on the initiation of transition to the digital economy | only the state initiative on formation of the digital economy through modernization is allowed | sta... |
