2012. Vol. 13. No. 1

The paper discusses cross-border shopping considering it as a practice of shopping outside one’s country of residence. The article is focused on the shopping practices of St Petersburg residents visiting the capital of Finland. The popularity of cross-border shopping has been increasing over in Russia as it became a part of the middle-class lifestyle. Drawing on the data from qualitative interviews, author discusses a set of reasons stimulating and restraining cross-border shopping.

In his famous book Ernst Schumacher proposes a revolutionary view on the economic structure of the Western world. Schumacher argues that human inclination to progress and profit seeking contributing to formation of gigantic enterprises and increasing specialization actually results in economic inefficiency, environment pollution, and deplorable labour conditions. The author challenges the doctrine of economic, technological and scientific specialization and proposes an idea of «intermediate technology» system based on small working units, new property relations, and utilization of local labour and resources. 

The journal «Economic Sociology» publishes an excerpt «A Question of Size» in which the author convincingly demonstrates that economics has to deal with the world of people not goods and abstract concepts.  

Analyzing the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey data of 2006–2009 years, the author reveals three groups of consumers which differ in their shopping practices: those who buy food (1) only in traditional stores, (2) only in modern stores, (3) in modern and traditional stores. The article reveals social and economic factors providing an impact on consumers’ choice of retail formats.

The article presents a review of academic debate on commodification of vital goods in economic sociology. It is assumed that this kind of commodification ceased to be an object for continuous criticism and became a subject for active sociological research. The author describes key perspectives in studies of commodification, discloses the reasons stimulating an economic sociologists’ interest to this topic, and composes a list of relevant research issues.