Requirements to Doctor’s Theses and Innovations of Regulation on Awarding Academic Degrees

(The Case of Economics) The paper analyzes the characteristics of quantitative standards of the new Regulation on awarding academic degrees using the statistical publication activity of seekers of the degree of doctor in economics in the first half of 2013 in the context of each scientific field. The author conducts stress tests of works of doctoral students to meet requirements of the new Regulation on the basis of detailed analysis of the data. The paper is aimed for discussion, especially from the point of view of increasing requirements to work applicants and their justification.