Home – Home – Jornals – Region: Economics and Sociology 2019 number 1

The article argues that a full-fledged analysis of the scale, causes and consequences of interregional differences in production and consumption indicators cannot be carried out with a limited number of the most immediate statistical factors. The most typical ones - GRP per capita, average wages and per capita income - are insufficient for obtaining objective conclusions and identifying all the factors that cause interregional differentiation, and they also lead to overestimating the scale of such differentiation. Moreover, in order to determine the scale of donation and recipientism, it is also clearly insufficient to compare data on the amounts of budget revenues and regional consolidated budget expenditures. The article shows how different factors of interregional differentiation can be when defined with various approaches.

The article presents a methodology for inclusive growth assessment in the Russian regions by building an appropriate comprehensive index. We seek to understand how, in a few years, economic growth, based on high energy prices, has reduced inequality, poverty and environmental pressures in the regions, and what trends have emerged in recent years. The article shows that a number of the most developed regions, e.g. Leningrad, Tyumen, Kaluga, Voronezh and Moscow Oblasts, the Republic of Tatarstan, St. Petersburg, have significantly improved their performance, especially in the field of increasing longevity, growing income, reducing the environmental burden. But in the period from 2012 to 2015, the value of the inclusive growth index in Russia fell to the level of 2007, and its differentiation between regions has increased dramatically. Accordingly, the results of a decade work to improve the sustainability and equity of regional devefopment have been partially nullified. In 2016, the index recovered to the level of 2011. For policy recommendations, it is important that the regions, where economic growth was accompanied by positive externalities in social and environmental sectors, were more resilient to external shocks. The developed index makes it possible to assess the dynamics and differentiation of socio-economic development of regions in terms of sustainability and inclusiveness.

The article aims to estimate an effect of health capital on the economic growth in Russian regions in endogenous growth models with expenditure on science and healthcare. Estimation of health capital’s effect on regional growth is carried out within a framework that accounts for expenditure on healthcare in the increase of quality of human capital. Based on data for 80 Russian regions for 2005-2013, the author builds fixed effects panel and Arellano-Bond regressions accounting for reverse causality and tests a hypothesis about statistically significant positive effect of public expenditure on healthcare on the rate of economic growth in Russian regions. The results show that an increase in public health expenditure as a share of GRP by 1 pp results in a rise of GRP growth rate by 1.34 pp. Private expenditure on healthcare that are mainly related to consumption of paid medical services have a negative effect on regional growth in the Arellano-Bond model. The findings of this study can be used by regional governments when developing policies in science and healthcare.

An analysis of the socio-economic situation in Arkhangelsk Oblast with statistic research methods helps to identify the causes influencing levelsof unemployment and employment, develop ways to reduce unemployment and increase employment, determine the industries that contribute to the development of the region’s economy until 2030. A review of the core documents aimed at reducing unemployment in Arkhangelsk Oblast allows assessing the legal framework critically and pointing out its imperfections.

The article examines the problems of organization’s reputational risk, reveals its essence and structure. The ability to preserve business reputation resilience has become particularly relevant in the light of intensified competition, its new forms and methods emerging, intangible assets becoming more important, information resources in the digital economy growing in quality and quantity, etc. Having analyzed the results of our 2018 sociological survey in the Ural and Volga federal districts, we establish a position towards the prevalence of reputational risk and the ability of organizations to remain resistant to it. The article identifies the most significant causes of reputational loss or reputational crises. A thesis is argued that the absence of a specific system to protect goodwill can lead to reputational crises that inflict substantial damage to the organization’s reputation and reduce its competitiveness. We highlight principles of ensuring reputation resilience in an organization and its ability to work with reputational risk. The article especially focuses on the need to use competitive early warning technology, as well as to identify the most effective measures, including proactive ones, and actions to protect business reputation. We consider certain issues of reputational vulnerability assessment and recognize prerequisites for its decline in a modern competitive environment.

The article is devoted to the problems of developing tourist zones in Russia’s economic space through designing and implementing tourism technological platforms providing sustainable reproduction of competitive regional tourism products. We consider the practices of applying tourism technological platforms abroad and prospects of their introduction in Russia. The authors conclude that now, while transitioning to the digital and «smart» economy, the introduction of the methodology of tourism technological platforms is an indispensable condition for increasing the competitiveness of domestic regional tourism products. The main research methods are the comparative and content analyses, the main research approaches are systemic, integrated and interdisciplinary ones. Research results can be used in elaborating the fundamental theory of tourism, concepts and strategies for the spatial development of Russian regions.

The article discusses the formation features of science cities and university towns in the Russian Federation against the background of global development processes of regional science and innovation systems. We conclude that it is expedient to provide state support to the strongest ones in order to set up national centers for the integration of science, education, and high-tech business. It is shown that one of such center should be Novosibirsk Akademgorodok, which hosts the Novosibirsk Scientific Center SB RAS, a leader among regional research and innovation systems of Russia in terms of R&D scale and diversification. We consider the main provisions of the Siberian Science City strategic initiative proposed in the Program for Reindustrialization of the Economy of Novosibirsk Oblast till 2025, as well as the Concept for the Development of the Novosibirsk Scientific Center (Novosibirsk Akademgorodok) as a high R&D concentration territory (Akademgorodok 2.0 Megaproject), developed on the direct instructions of the President of the Russian Federation. The article carries out comparative analysis of these documents and deduces that they are very close ideologically, but the Akademgorodok 2.0 Megaproject did a more thorough exploration on building world-class science and innovation infrastructure, as well as housing, social, transport, and engineering infrastructure that provides the modern and comfortable social living environment. Within Akademgorodok 2.0, we consider creating a world-class research and educational center at the premises of Novosibirsk National Research State University and its relations with academic institutions and industrial partners. We reveal the positive influence that the Akademgorodok 2.0 Megaproject has on the development of Novosibirsk Oblast and Novosibirsk City, as well as possible problem areas and risks of this strategic initiative.

The paper proposes an approach to the formation of value-added chains of high-tech mineral raw materials of the Arctic (diamond-lonsdalite material) considered as factors of growth in industrial efficiency, primarily in instrumental industry. We use system methods of scientific research, economic analysis and evaluation of the investment project for the extraction and processing of this raw material with both standard (NPV, IRR, PI, DPBP) and unconventional (MIRR, EAA) efficiency indicators. The article shows the features and characteristics of the raw materials, justifies approaches to creating value chains, producing and consuming diamond-lonsdalite material within the industry, estimates economic parameters of its production and consumption, systematizes regulated and unregulated problems and restrictions associated with the process of forming value-added chains. The results can be used in shaping the development strategy of certain sectors in a new high-tech domestic economy (high-performance tool industry), administering science and technology policy, implementing technology import substitution policy, and expanding export potential.

The article assesses indicators of Siberian regions' economic development and identifies an urgent need for advanced digital technologies used in its raw materials regions. We consider efficiency for two groups of digital economy technologies - industrial and communication ones - from the standpoint of environmental and social risks. The article presents a brief analysis of the Digital Economy State Program in terms of it ensuring that industrial technologies are implemented with human resources. We show how relevant robotic technologies are today and how science and methodology substantiation of this path’s efficiency follows research carried out in the 1980s. The main element of the substantiation is related to defining the impact of social factors on robotics efficiency under shortage of highly-skilled workforce in both creating and operating robotic systems. We reveal the essence and show advantages of additive technologies as the most promising digital technologies in the industrial group.

The financial independence of local self-government is the most important condition for its effective functioning. In Russia, the most of socially significant expenditures is concentrated at the level of local budgets. The purpose of this study is to analyze the main directions of the formation and use of local budgets in the Russian Federation. To achieve this goal, we accomplish the following tasks: 1) we reveal the peculiarities of the structure of gross and own budgetary revenues of local self-governments, 2) we determine specifics of tax and non-tax revenues of municipalities, 3) we describe the structure of transfers to the local budgets from higher ones. System approach, comparative analysis, analysis of the structure of the most important budget indicators in dynamics are used during the research. Economic, mathematical, statistical and balance methods are involved to solve the tasks posed in the research. The calculations performed on materials of municipal settlements in the Russian Federation have revealed features of revenue and expenditure budgeting at the local level. The results of the research can be used to study the possibilities of improving the budget policy towards budget equalization and stimulation of municipalities to strengthen their own revenue base. The theoretical and practical significance of the research consists in the possibility of using the proposed approaches in assessing the effectiveness of subfederal fiscal policy. In addition, this analysis has made it possible to characterize the budgetary situation at the municipal level regarding how sufficient the financial resources are for exercising proper and transferred powers. At present, the problems of strengthening the revenue base of local budgets and increasing the interest of local authorities in the performance of enterprises and organizations operating in their territories remain extremely relevant in the Russian Federation.

The article discusses a methodological approach to constructing a model for optimized planning of the operation of businesses, firms, corporations in industrial clusters based on the enterprise economic concern. The research is associated with devising mechanisms to manage the development of enterprises and corporations within their integration. This raises many organizational-economic problems: rationalizing intra-corporate transfer prices, determining synergistic, system effect and its distribution among the cluster participants, assessing the efficiency of innovative-investment projects, financial innovations and other developments. The most effective manufacturing organization is for a group of industrial firms combined into a cluster to issue complex, high-value-added science-intensive products with solvent demand not only in the domestic market, but also abroad. Therefore, it is quite difficult to design a generalized mechanism that would solve the presented tasks without studies modeling such processes. The authors develop a research and methodological approach to creating an effective system of intra-corporate planning of operation and development of an industrial cluster while coordinating integration among its enterprises with the use of a model for optimized strategic management of high-tech business development within the industrial cluster management platform. The formation of clusters is an important element of the region’s industrial policy. The results of practical calculations show the effectiveness of the proposed mechanism for managing the development of industrial clusters.