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This chapter is devoted to budget investments in the Russian Federation, which nowadays have a double meaning. This fact often causes confusion and misunderstandings in the implementation of investment activities.

Traditional Russian understanding of investment corresponds to the concept of capital expenditures or investments in fixed assets. As a result of budget investments, according to the budget legislation, the cost of public property necessarily increases. Such investments are budget expenditures for the creation (or purchase) of new capital assets. In this case, the budget investments are like a synonym for capital expenditures.

A new approach to the concept of cost of investments is linked to perception and rethinking of the concept of investment prevailing in the countries of Western Europe and North America. Under this approach, investments are understood as a commercial activity of the foreign investors, which consist of investing their funds in an unlimited range of objects of entrepreneurial activity in the territory of Russia. This approach is also embodied by the legislation of the Russian Federation.

However, in the second (not traditional for Russia) meaning, investment are carried out at the budget execution. These are, for example, assets of sovereign wealth funds of the Russian Federation, which are called the Reserve Fund and National Welfare Fund. These funds are formed by part of the revenues associated with oil production in the case of it exceeding its cost base per barrel, and the free assets of these funds are located in certain foreign currencies and securities.

This chapter defines the prospects of treasury technologies considering the current financial environment in Russia. The purpose of this chapter is to justify the promising treasury technologies, which improve the quality of budget flows’ management. The authors highlight the mission, role, and values of treasury institute. The evaluation of its functional activity and efficiency as well as the world experience in the development of the institution is provided. Comparative analysis of treasury technology for the implementation of foreign budgets with domestic practice is provided. The need for development of treasury technologies providing the liquidity of “single treasury account” is justified. This chapter suggests expanding the positive experience of the Federal Treasury using treasury technologies to ensure the efficient use of budgetary funds on both, regional and local levels.

Financial assurance rules, also known as financial responsibility or bonding requirements, foster cost internalization by requiring potential polluters to demonstrate the financial resources necessary to compensate for environmental damage that may arise in the future. Accordingly, assurance is an important complement to liability rules, restoration obligations, and other regulatory compliance requirements. The paper reviews the need for assurance, given the prevalence of abandoned environmental obligations, and assesses the implementation of assurance rules in the United States. From the standpoint of both legal effectiveness and economic efficiency, assurance rules can be improved. On the whole, however, cost recovery, deterrence, and enforcement are significantly improved by the presence of existing assurance regulations.

As South Africa (SA) increasingly becomes overwhelmed by natural disasters, understanding disaster risk reduction (DRR) policies, institutions, processes and practices and their effects on disaster risk management (DRM) are incumbent The study reviews and empirically analyses policies, institutional frameworks and processes for disaster management in SA. Content analysis is applied to review topical secondary data, while a structured questionnaire informed by the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction is used to collect quantitative data from a random sample of 228 disaster policy actors from five disaster-stricken metropolitan cities in five provinces in SA, namely North-West, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo and Mpumalanga. Empirical data were analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software. Research findings reveal that SA is endowed with rich institutional policy and legal frameworks for DRM, based on the concepts of decentralisation and stakeholder participation. A positive and strong correlation between institutional framework, disaster risk identification and prioritisation, knowledge creation and management (KCM) as well as the disaster governance and DRM in SA (p = 0.000). Although the coefficient of KCM is not statistically significant, DRM behaviour was influenced at 87.2% by all four variables. Based on the recent disaster experiences and the above results, we advocate for DRR to be continuously prioritised at national and decentralised levels, to enhance effective preparedness, mitigation, disaster response and resilience building practices in SA.

This chapter deals with the development of banking in the Crown of Aragon from the end of the thirteenth century through the establishment of money changers, which followed similar patterns as in other Western European territories. It starts with a review of existing literature and follows with an explanation on the different banking services provided by money changers and the specific legal framework that supported such activities. It then examines the geographical distribution of private banks in cities and towns within the domains of the kings of Aragon, as well as their evolution throughout the fourteenth century. After that, it offers an analysis of the most common professional profiles among these bankers and financers. Finally, drawing on a heterogeneous pool of unpublished data, it seeks to shed light on the diversity of investors and clients of these establishments, a crucial proof of their role in integrated financial markets.