15%

was the average share of profit in the earnings of companies producing knowledge-based services in 2013.

In comparison with 2007, this figure has grown by a factor of 1.5. Researchers suggest that owners of small companies now prefer to receive income not in the form of salaries but as profit, since profit taxation for them is more forgiving than income taxation on salary payments.

These calculations were made by researchers at the HSE’s Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge (ISSEK) following a survey of 600 heads of Russian companies producing knowledge-based services in 2013. The survey was conducted by the Higher School of Economics as part of the Monitoring of Knowledge-Intensive Business Services in Russia, a project carried out under the HSE’s Basic Research Programme.