Content №3 от 2022
Macrostructural and Spatial Disparities in the Economy of Russia and its Eastern Regions and Ways to Reduce Them
This article analyzes the structure of the economy of Russia along with its European and Asian macrozones by aggregates of types of economic activities (TEA). It substantiates the estimates of macrostructural consequences for the economy transitioning to an equilibrium strategy of making development priorities for TEA aggregates. We propose a scheme to prioritizing socio-economic development by the proportions of value added and people employed. Possible shifts in the value proportions of TEA aggregates during the transition to an equilibrium strategy of shaping employment have been assessed. Another objective has been to clarify the estimations of macrostructural development priorities based on indicators of regional economies' performance. The paper also examines the macrostructural priorities of using added value in the region (for investment, household incomes, and other expenses) and gives prospective assessments of macrostructural changes in the enlarged zones of the Russian Federation till 2030.
Regional Development Institutions: Do They Need a Hard Reset?
At the turn of2000-2010, all constituent entities of the Russian Federation established many regional development institutions (RDI). These are specialized organizations, aimed at increasing investment and creating a favorable regional business environment. However, the presence of a comprehensive support for their activities in terms of methodology, normative and legal regulation remains debatable. The issue, on the one hand, reduces the effectiveness of RDIs; on the other hand, this makes it difficult to develop a unified approach to assessing their contribution to the local economy. The analysis of the correlation between the investment dynamics for 2017-2020 in the Central Federal District with the number of development institutions created in Russian entities shows how multidirectional these characteristics are in the context of individual regions.
Our research has been carried out based on practical data from Yaroslavl Oblast. The role and importance of RDIs for the social and economic development of territories are the reasons why we have chosen such institutions as its object. The subject of the study was the search for reserves to improve the effectiveness of RDIs in investment projects. Having analyzed the performance of development corporations, a type of institutions with the widest representation in the Russian constituent entities, and identified challenging conditions for RDIs ’ functioning, we are able to draw a conclusion about the need for significant modernization of regional institutions. Our suggestion is to conduct this toward reestablishing RDIs as a single infrastructure complex, coordinate the work of institutions, as well as to have a clearer distribution of functions performed by them. The results of the study contribute to improving the activities of RDIs and boosting their efficiency in task-solving.
Rajkhlina A. V. avrajkhlina@fa.ru
Population, Monetary Income and National Security of the Russian Federation and Its Regions 61 in Pandemic Conditions
Communities of living beings on our planet are striving to increase in numbers and expand the territory of their habitat. This helps to preserve them selves in the struggle for life, to survive in the process of natural selection. The above is true for human society as well. In it, increasing the population and improving the quality of life are both the goals and the critical resources for development. This article presents the results of the author’s research on the dynamics of the population of the Russian Federation and eighty-two of its administrative-territorial entities between 1990 and 2020. Another focal point is the interregional distribution of monetary incomes of citizens. The performed economic and statistical study has revealed some processes weakening the security of the Russian Federation, such as the depopulation of the country and its regions, the deepening of the territorial differentiation of the population distribution and its monetary income.
Household Income and Consumption in the Regions in Pandemic Conditions
This article considers how household income, consumer demand, and savings form amid a crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic and fall in prices for exports commodities. We analyze household income, consumer demand, and savings in the context of decile region groups, shaped according to the average income per capita and taking into account interregional price differentiation. We also assess the impact of social support measures as a factor of income stabilization. The article examines the way dynamics and structure of consumer spending depend on household income. Consumer spending is shown to decline even in the regions with an uprise in incomes. As parts of the consumer spending structure, the share of spending on goods increased while that on services decreased in every region. We remark a widespread growth in population savings: in rich regions, it mainly took a form of bank deposits, whereas regions with low incomes had cash money accumulated by the population. Household spending on real estate, including through home loans, went up. Despite fewer loans issued to the population in 2020, the credit burden on incomes grew. The changes in the structure of household expenditures can be viewed as a movement towards the household «survival model».
Accessibility of Tourism and Recreation for People in Russia: the Economic Aspect
Studying the accessibility of tourism and recreation is taking on new relevance with stimulating tourist and recreational activities as an indicator of socio-economic development in Russian regions, on the one hand, and of the population’s needs to restore physical and emotional health, on the other. The observed inter-regional differentiation of Russian constituent entities in terms of recreation and tourism opportunities is determined by several factors. The economic one appears to be key, determining whether tourist travel is at all possible and what destinations are chosen by those living in regions.
The purpose of this work is to classify regions in Russia, based on the effective demand level indicator, into typological groups by the accessibility of tourism and recreation to the population. We distinguish a total of five typological groups with regions differing in recreation and tourism opportunities. One-fifth of constituent entities in the Russian Federation show high or above-average potential in recreational activity and quality of destination choices. These territories can provide tourists to themselves and other regions, stimulating domestic tourism in Russia, as well as actively consume tourist services abroad. The dominant part of Russian regions (68.2%) belongs to the groups of low and below-average recreation and tourism opportunities. It puts forth the problem of domestic tourism accessibility. Further research will be aimed at identifying the accessibility of domestic tourism for the population residing in the regions from these typological groups, with due regard to price, infrastructure, and other territorial capabilities, across different types of tourism.
The study applies the following methods: economic analysis, juxtaposition, comparison, generalization, induction, and deduction.
High-Tech Business and the Economic Complexity of Russian Regions
High-tech business (HTB) drives new products and markets, as well as reshapes traditional industries and ways of doing business, which is one of the key factors in long-term economic development. This article analyzes the state of high-tech business development at the regional level in conjunction with the economic complexity of regional economies. The role of HTB varies significantly in the economies of individual regions. Furthermore, regions differ by their economic complexity. Such an index is calculated based on the local export basket and reflects the availability of special production opportunities for further expansion.
The aim of the article is to classify Russian regions, bearing in mind the patterns of HTB evolution and regional economic complexity, in order to then identify leading and outsider regions. The results of our analysis suggest that high-tech business is more extensive and advanced in economically more complex regions. Thus, the economic complexity of regions may be a criterion for determining strategies for their economic development, including measures to support HTB. The article proposes regional economic development policy strategies for the selected groups of regions, which take into account the existing opportunities to make economies more complex.
Spatial Differentiation of Migration Factors in the Arctic Region (Case Study of the Karelian Arctic)
The article analyzes the processes of human capital reproduction in the Karelian Arctic, one of the regions in the Arctic Zone of the Russian Federation (AZRF). Our research aims to identify the spatial differentiation of migration factors for people residing in this region. Migration attitudes of the population serve as the most important indicator that allows us to talk about spatially determined differences amid human capital reproduction.
It has been established that the Karelian Arctic, as much as the whole AZRF, is characterized by a decrease in the population due to its normal aging and low rates of natural reproduction. A few indicators reflect the transition to positive dynamics in inter- and intra-regional migration, which is most likely associated with new large city-forming enterprises recently appeared in the Karelian Arctic. The revealed differentiation of the reasons determining the population’s migration attitudes reflects certain social and economic conditions critical for the reproduction of the regional socio-economic system. In the Karelian Arctic, the most prominent among them are the state of health care and education, prevailing economic underdevelopment, and uncertain general prospects for socio-economic development of the region and its municipalities. The pole of economic development and relative social well-being - Kostomuksha municipal district - is an exception to these rules. We uncover how the Karelian Arctic’s economic space differs in terms of human capital reproduction.
Volkov A. D. kov8vol@gmail.com
Scientific Center’s Public Perception of the New Science and Technology Infrastructure Facilities
The article presents a study of how scientific center’s residents perceive new science and technology (S&T) infrastructure, based on the 2006 and 2021 mass surveys conducted in Novosibirsk Akademgorodok. This research is relevant due to the issues most scientific centers faced in post-Soviet Russia and the need to transform these unique metropolitan settlements. Various projects to transform their environment are implemented with the purpose of solving the problems, among them the creation of technoparks and other new objects of S&T infrastructure. Their success largely depends on social factors, including the public perception of innovations.
We consider two projects for new S&T facilities in Novosibirsk Akademgorodok: Technopark (2006) and SKIF Shared Use Center (2021). The perception of these projects by the population was assessed in terms of the following parameters: awareness of the project, attitude towards the project, and negative and positive expectations from the project implementation. As a result, we reveal how these perception parameters differentiate, as well as describe their possible conflict points and dynamics.
Pirotskaya A. V. a.pirotskaya@mail.ru
Issues of Preserving and Growing Human Capital in Agriculture (Case Study of Some Siberian Regions)
Modern socio-political and economic problems have increased the urgency of agricultural development through modern innovation. Such development is only possible with the availability of highly qualified personnel. However, at present, the rural economy of Russia experiences a shortage of necessary personnel, which is one of the reasons for the slow introduction of innovations and insufficiently rapid advancement of agriculture. This situation is due to the reluctance of young and skilled people to lead a working life in rural areas caused by such problems as low wages, domestic inconveniences, etc. Hence the necessity to work on solving these, preserve and grow human capital in agricultural production, thus filling the agrarian sector with labor resources in the necessary quantity and high quality and fully ensuring the food security in Russia and its regions.
Labor Markets in Resource-Type Regions: Shocks of 2020
The impact on labor markets of measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 almost immediately became the subject of increased attention to researchers across the globe. Already in mid-2020, analytical materials emerged estimating the magnitude and consequences of pandemic shocks at both the national and subnational levels. In this paper we propose that the shocks that labor markets responded to in 2020 should include not only restrictive measures to curb the spread of COVID-19 but also shocks of independent significance to the fall of several commodity markets.
The purpose of the article is to characterize the reactions of the labor markets in Russian resource-type regions to the crisis of2020. We used Rosstat data as empirical basis to present regional labor markets by months/quarters of2020 as compared with the corresponding period in 2019.
This study confirms that the Russian labor market has responded with traditional adjustment mechanisms, primarily flexible working hours. Their regulation by the state, on the one hand, helped curb the decline in employment and the growth of ILO unemployment rate, while, on the other hand, registered unemployment rose. At the same time, regional labor markets reacted differently to the 2020 shocks. This was due to the different impact of various recession factors, as well as to the different impact of institutional changes in the regulation of employment. The study revealed differences in the response to the 2020 shocks in the labor markets of resource-type regions with different degrees of resource dependence.
Environmental Information: Its Availability and Transparency for Analyzing Regional Environment
The availability, transparency, and quality of environmental information largely determine the quality of decisions made in the environmental sector, including those related to preventing the negative impact of environmental pollution on human health. Therefore, environmental data should be mainly kept in an open information space. This article examines the current state of environmental information from the standpoint of its availability and transparency and then identifies the critical problems in providing regional studies with data on environmental protection. We analyze why and to what extent it is difficult to provide information on the state of the environment in general and applied regional studies in particular. With an assessment of current legislative provision of environmental information, it is shown that the Law No. 39-FZ adopted in March 2021, which regulates the relations on providing citizens and organizations with environmental information, did not live up to expectations and, according to experts, will not lead to a noticeable improvement in the situation. Its weaknesses are noted and areas requiring further elaboration and refinement are highlighted.
