Home – Home – Jornals – Region: Economics and Sociology 2019 number 2

The article states primary approaches to analyzing problems of regional management, identifies economic interests of economics agents in regions and conflicts of regional reproduction and possibilities of considering them in strategic management. We base our research on the reproductive approach and a new matrix of institutional structures’ interests used for examining economic contradictions among subjects of regional and municipal economy, as well as justifying possible impacts of management activities on the processes of regional development. Using the socio-economic interest matrix, we have uncovered the key challenges and contradictions of socio-economic development that emerged at a meeting point for the interests of various institutional structures. Resolving conflicts between the interests and capacities of socio-economic structures and attaining the desired goals comprise the subject of strategic management. The article determines that differences in economic interests among regional reproduction subjects are of objective nature. Being a reproductive system, any region is a set of interacting structures - agents of socio-economic activity, which include federal structures representing public authorities, interregional structures (associations, networks of regions), and regional structure (local authorities managing regional socio-economic development, business structures, public organizations, etc.). We identify main contradictions in the regional reproduction process and propose methodological approaches to their solution. It is shown that the conflict of interest among subjects is based on the scantiness of regional resources: land, energy, infrastructure, labor, and finance. We examine the role of strategic management in preventing and resolving conflict of economic interest of various structures within the regional reproduction process and achieving equity. The research results may be used to draft guidelines for federal and regional authorities on improving legal framework of strategic management with regard to the economic interests of regional reproduction subjects and conflicts among them.

The article analyzes large-scale railway projects, namely Sakhalin - Mainland, Lena - Kamchatka, and Transpolar mainlines, planned in the long term to be launched in Siberia and the Far East. We apply methods of system analysis and expert-based technologies for assessing their comparative social effectiveness in order to establish projects’ priority ranking in different contrasting scenarios for the development of economy and society in Russia. To support investment decision-making procedures, we use local computer programs developed at the Institute of Economics and Industrial Engineering SB RAS and Siberian Transport University. The article presents and comments on the results of experimental calculations made with this software.

The article discusses the role of small innovative enterprises (SIEs) in the Strategy for Science and Technology Development of the Russian Federation. The research objective is to identify trends and spatial features of the SIE development during the period 2007-2017 and assess the measures of state support for this segment of the national economy. In accordance with the task set, we diagnose the dynamics of the main SIEs condition indicators in various constituent entities of the federation while relying on the data forms of federal statistical observation No. 2-МП (innovation) «Information on Technological Innovations of a Small Enterprise». Different combinations of changes in statistical reporting indicators help estimate the baseline conditions in the region for the development of small innovative enterprises during the next forecast period. The presented analysis confirms that innovation activity has decreased in the field of SIEs and indicates a significant divergence of trends at the regional level. It is shown that the procedures implemented by the Federal Corporation for SMEs have not had a sufficient stimulating effect on the development of small innovative businesses. We examine the data of the draft passport of the national program «Small and medium-sized businesses and support for individual entrepreneurial initiatives» and make proposals to expand SIE support measures.

High investment climate quality is an important factor for the economic development of regions. An investment climate is largely determined by institutions that form the conditions for doing business within the boundaries of territorial formation. Numerous studies show that institutional quality has a significant effect on indicators of investment activity, and the influence of institutions at the regional level is significant. The paper contains an empirical study of the quality of institutions that create investment climate in nine regions of Russia. The author identifies some key institutional problems preventing investment in the regions based on the series of polls and structured interviews with investors and government officials. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of the Regional Investment Standard (RIS) implementation practice, where, since 2012, a package of reforms has been introduced in all Russian regions to create favorable conditions for investment activities. The study shows that the most important result of this package of reforms is lower administrative barriers for investors. However, the RIS does not yet have any positive impact on the level of investors ’ rights protection, does not create the necessary tax incentives for investment projects, nor does it imply establishing institutions to consider regional specificities. A part of the reforms ’ implementation problems is also due to the lack of motivation among local authorities.

The paper identifies the factors that affect the success of car sharing companies. At present, Russian car sharing market is highly competitive and companies must invest a lot in factors that will ensure their development and growth. A scarcity of research on Russian car sharing makes the topic relevant and creates the need for studies that take into account the specifics of the business in Russia. Having assessed the practices of other countries presented in foreign literature and the industry in Russia, we put forward two main hypotheses: the success of car sharing expressed in the number of clients will be affected by 1) service availability and 2) its value for money. An econometric analysis partially confirms each of the hypotheses. It turns out that among the positive effects on the number of customers are such features as the quantity of cars available for rent, the presence of the service in both Moscow and St. Petersburg at the same time, as well as the number of airports in the service area, while the price increase has a negative impact. The results of the study allow providing recommendations for car sharing services.

The article studies tax revenues of the consolidated budgets in constituent entities (subjects) of the Russian Federation and their determinants. The purpose of the current research is to assess how much various economic sectors contribute to incremental tax revenue growth in the sub-federal budgets of Russian subjects and their factorial decomposition. In order to complete this goal, we develop a four-factor additive-multiplicative model of tax revenues generation in regions. Within this model, tax revenues at the sectoral level of region are determined by the sector’s share in the regional economy (structural factor), its tax burden (fiscal factor), the level of tax revenues internal absorption in the economy (inter-budgetary factor), and the size of gross regional product (factor of scale). To assess the contribution of these factors in the regions and in the country at the aggregated and disaggregated levels, we use a mixed factor analysis including proportional, logarithmic, and integral methods. The study reveals that the largest contributors to incremental tax revenue growth in the consolidated sub-federal budgets of Russian subjects have been the five largest regions, as well as import-export: manufacturing industries, joint financial activities and real estate transactions, trade and mining. Changes in tax burden and internal absorption have, on average, decreased tax revenue inflow to the budgets in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, whereas growing GRP and altering sectoral structure increased them. The difference in the influence of these factors at the aggregated (national) and disaggregated (average regional) levels is explained by the levels of their interregional inequality. The results of the study are applicable to assessing potential tax revenues in regions, taking into account a possibility to manage their determinants.

The article considers the main features of the economic crises of1998, 2009, and 2015, and analyzes the dynamics of the main indicators of the socio-economic development of the regions in and out of the crisis. It is shown that the foundation of all crises is structural factors: imbalances in the sectoral structure, a weak financial sector of the economy, and weak institutions. The resource-oriented economy model proved unsustainable to external shocks. In all the cases, the crisis drop began in regions most dependent on external economic conditions: metropolitan agglomerations and oil-and-gas producing regions. However, a deeper decline in production and slow economic recovery were observed in regions focused on domestic demand. After the 2009 crisis, the magnitude off luctuations in growth rates decreases in all federal districts. Production does not drop as far during the crisis, but its subsequent rise is also low. We evaluate the impact of national trends and features of production structure in regions on the regional economic dynamics. The article shows an increased interregional differentiation of growth rates under crisis and an increased value of regional factors proper. The resilience of regional economies to crisis shocks is determined by regional factors contribution. We consider the proportions of income distribution between households and businesses, as their changes determine the dynamics of consumer and investment demand. It is shown that transferring income towards businesses is not a factor for investment growth. The regional structure of investment demand has no direct correlation with the structure of business income. The peculiarity of the 2015 economic crisis is that final demand adapted to external shocks and the reduced post-devaluation ruble exchange rate by compressing both investment and consumer demand. The real sector of the economy shows the greatest resistance to the crisis; pre-crisis industrial indicators in 2018 are exceeded in all federal districts.

One of the advantages of the spatial concentration of economic activity is an increase in its efficiency, which can have a positive impact on efficiency dynamics at neighboring economies. However, geographical proximity does not automatically guarantee the diffusion of positive spatial effects. Nevertheless, these processes do largely determine changes in the configuration of the economic space and the further perspectives for its development. The article reflects the results of the study on the role of spatial externalities in the dynamics of labor productivity, regional economy’s efficiency indicator. The main research method is creating transition probability matrices and analyzing their properties. It is shown that high inequality of labor productivity in regional economies prevents the manifestation of positive spatial externalities. Substantial differences in the level of labor productivity between regional economies both worsen the relative dynamics of lagging regions and adversely affect the relative dynamics of the leading ones. Reducing the disparities contributes to the diffusion of positive externalities, accelerates the growth of labor productivity in less efficient regions, and fosters it in the leading regions. The obtained results show that the regional policy aimed at curbing the increase in regional inequality and creating conditions to expand interregional cooperation and collaboration is more adequate to the current situation.

The article summarizes the first stage of fairly large research aimed at obtaining new knowledge covering the influence of traditional factors of regional development (region’s economic specialization and its position in the center-periphery model) on the advancement of territorial socio-economic systems under current conditions. The paper gives a general idea of agro-industrial regions as a special type of territorial socio-economic systems with their intrinsic economic specialization, nature of the settlement system, living standard and social behavior, largely due to the «inherited» development features. We propose a science-driven methodology to define agro-industrial regions in Russia. We describe in detail a procedure for creating attribute space and present requirements for each indicator and their system as a whole. The article presents how the proposed methodology has been tested in regions of the Russian Federation. The article composes two groups of closely related indicators revealing the orientation of Russian regions towards industrial and agricultural development. The regions have been classified in a two-dimensional space where the axes are the degrees a region’s agrarian-ness and industrial-ness. We expand on the territorial-sectoral structure of the Russian economy and identify agro-industrial regions. The findings of this study are correlated with the results of previous works of similar nature.

The article considers modern theories of cluster development and cluster policy. We assess clustering trends in foreign countries and examine pilot clusters in the Russian Federation. We describe the structure of the theoretical foundation of system bases for innovation clusters. The article presents an approach to creating integrated innovative clusters as a complex set of interconnected elements and subsystems. It defines key systemic principles providing a basis for innovation clusters. The system design principles of integrated multi-level innovation clusters are determined as follows: consistency; centralized operation; non-additivity; balancing between the clusters’ main and supporting; maximum reasonable efficiency; harmony among projects with different deadlines; maintaining a critical mass of cluster members; overcoming the barriers of subject areas in innovation; continuous step-by-step development. The article designs a three-level innovation mega-cluster, as well as an innovation cluster structure that satisfies the principles of centralized operation and overcoming the barriers of subject areas in innovation.

The article presents a comparative analysis on the dynamics of the size and sex-age structure of the population in the Siberian Federal district and its regions within modern Russian trends, as well as an impact assessment regarding their changes and risks for socio-economic development in the future. We used the multi-regional demographic analysis of time series as a research method. The study was conducted distinguishing the population of urban and rural settlements, with its information base comprised of Rosstat data for 1989-2017. The article shows that, against the background of a general decline in the SFD population, especially in rural areas, negative trends in the sex-age structure of the population manifested themselves in the reduced pre-working age population considering their numbers and proportion, in the transition from working-age population increase to a more rapid decline compared to nationwide figures, in the rising rates of growth in the size and proportion of the post-working age population. This leads to the aging of the entire population and its working-age segment, to an increase in the demographic load on the working age population, to sexual asymmetry, to reduced numbers and aging of fertile women. Such long-term changes pose a threat not only to the demographic potential but also to the socio-economic development and future both of the region and the country.

The article examines the scope and nature of migration ties between different-type regions in Russia and their consequences for the socio-demographic potential of donor territories. The objects of the research are the Republic of Bashkortostan, constituent entity of the Russian Federation with a high share of working-age out-migrants, and Tyumen Oblast, oil and gas region with a steady inflow of the working-age population. The article relies on statistical and sociological data to analyze the scope and structure of long-term and short-term migration from the Republic of Bashkortostan to Tyumen Oblast and other Russian regions. Outstanding features of the autonomous regions in Tyumen Oblast, which differ them from other Russian regions in close migration relationships with the republic, include a great share of gross migration with Bashkortostan, a major population inflow from the republic due to employment, and prevalence of people with primary vocational and secondary special education among Bashkortostan migrants. Migration ties between the Siberian regions and Bashkortostan exhibit relatively low performance, which is largely due to the circular nature of such migration. However, quantitatively equal in- and outflows of the population between the Republic of Bashkortostan and Tyumen Oblast differ in terms of quality: the republic donates a young, maritally and reproductively active generation and adopts older people, already accomplished their demographic plans. The existing migration exchange weakens the socio-demographic potential of Bashkortostan as a donor region. Moreover, the republic's socio-demographic potential is also affected by the short-term (on/off) migration of its population which, as a consequence, may alter intra-family relations, have a negative impact on migrants’ health, etc. The current migration exchange between regions under study showcases how inconsistent and ambiguous migration is as a social phenomenon, since solving employment and wealth-related issues comes with risk and threats to the socio-demographic development of donor regions.