Content №4 от 2019
Evaluating the Impact of Infrastructure on Economic Development in Russian Regions
The authors evaluate the impact of infrastructural endowment and spatial externalities on economic growth in Russian regions. The main hypothesis of the study states that the availability of transport, energy and telecommunication infrastructure in a region impacts GRP growth rates, but the nature of the impact varies depending on a region’s specialization and development level.
Estimation of panel regressions indicates that the development of highways and mobile communications provides the most significant impact on economic growth, and spatial externalities of improved infrastructure in nearby regions are positive. The economies of the less advanced eastern regions are more sensitive to infrastructural limitations than those of the western ones. Industry-oriented regions are the major beneficiaries of investments in highways in the neighboring regions, as well as an increased power supply on their territories. The development of the mobile communication infrastructure has had a positive growth impact over the period between 2001 and 2017 in many Russian regions. However, since the nationwide diffusion of mobile communication mostly complete, potentialities of using telecommunication infrastructure development as a growth factor are practically exhausted.
