2008. Vol. 9. No. 5

Economic systems of the developed societies, which traditionally are labeled ‘capitalist’ or ‘market’ ones, are ratherheterogeneous in reality. There are several independent economic models that differ in socio-economic, political andideological respects. The paper covers a range of methodological approaches to the comparative analysis of economicsystems, and sketches its basic typology comprising ‘liberal capitalism’ of Anglo-Saxon world and ‘non-liberalcapitalism’ of continental Europe, Japan and some other countries. Two models of capitalism are differentiated by thetype of economic agents and institutional setting. Each of them holds specific competitive advantages, which enablesthem more or less successfully to reduce socio-economic problems. Unfolding globalization does not implyconvergence and unification of economic practices. Rather hybridization takes place implying institutional changes thatenable economic models to meet the new challenges.

During recent years there has been a surge of studies of entrepreneurs from different ethnic minorities. Ethnic minoritieshave different resources and face different opportunities than mainstream entrepreneurs.

The article dwells on the phenomenon of ‘fast fashion’, the new understanding of fashion which superseded theconcepts of class and mass fashion. The concept of ‘fast fashion’ views fashion in the context of global industry anddivision of labour in the world economy, which leaves production and distribution of goods for developing, ‘thirdworld’, countries, whereas marketing and consumption are mostly performed in capitalist countries. The articledemonstrates the ways in which the concept of fast fashion glimpses in consumption practices of citizen of Saint-Petersburg via document and quantitative analyses of data from the survey held in Saint-Petersburg in 2007.

The aim of the paper is to reveal the main factors affecting the choice of food products, and the analysis of behaviour offood consumers. A standardized survey of adult population was conducted in Moscow and Tumen. The analysis of thedatabase (sample comprises 540 people) allowed to define four types of consumers: conservative, wasteful, impulsiveand inconsistent. The obtained results demonstrate that people are able to ‘switch’ between these types of consumption.