Home – Home – Jornals – Region: Economics and Sociology 2019 number 4

The article discusses the crucial need for rekindling social and economic growth in Russia. The social and economic development in the regions should be driven primarily through the mobilization of investment in fixed assets and knowledge-based economy, especially in human capital; since it is human capital, as well as people’s knowledge and skills, that determines social and economic growth. The article considers the opportunities that the regions have to improve citizens’ well-being.

The article discusses the first steps that were taken to introduce the Program for the Development of the Novosibirsk Scientific Center as a high R&D concentration territory (Akademgorodok 2.0 Megaproject) and some results of substantiating the prospects for development of the NSC SB RAS within Science City («Naukopolis») in Novosibirsk metropolitan area. We analyze approaches to development scenarios for this territory under combined social and economic, scientific and technological, infrastructural and urban-planning decisions. The article paints a picture of the future Akademgorodok 2.0 for each of the three scenarios considered. We examine approaches to creating a management system in Science City (including those focused on the Federal Law of July 29, 2017 No. 216-FZ «On innovative scientific and technological centers and on making changes in certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation»). As an alternative management model, we propose to organize the National Science and Technology Corporation for Siberia’s Development and register it as a joint-stock company, which will both ensure that the funds allocated for the Akademgorodok 2.0 projects are used efficiently and solve the problem of earning and replicating financial resources for these purposes.

The article studies a change in the spatial coherence of economic activity of Russian regions that occurred over the period from 1997 to 2016. We obtain quantitative estimates through spatial econometric methods and use two model specifications: the spatial lag model and the spatial error model. Relations between regions are modeled as spatial externalities described in two ways, either with the adjacency or distance matrix. The article tests the following hypotheses: 1) unified macroeconomic policy and market integration encourage better spatial coherence of economic activity; 2) the western Russian regions have a stronger spatial bond in comparison with the eastern ones; 3) economic sanctions against Russia encouraged creating new internal relations and strengthening the existing ones, as well as increased overall spatial coherence inside the country. According to our estimates, there are no distinct trends towards change in the spatial coherence of economic activity in Russia, and international sanctions did not affect interregional relations. Territories maintain interactions crucial for economic activity primarily with their neighbors. The cooperation that emerges between regions is not spatially deep and quickly fades with increasing distance. This observation is also confirmed by the fact that spatial relations are much more significant for the European part of the country compared to the eastern regions.

In the past two decades, Russia has seen a decrease in the number of banks. The two reasons for the drop are as follows: the concentration and consolidation processes taking place in the banking industry throughout the world, and the banking sector sanitation policy pursued by the Central Bank of the Russian Federation (CBR). As a consequence, now banking activities in the country are conducted primarily by banks with headquarters in the capital. The article discusses the implications of such geographical centralization of the Russian banking sector in terms of providing the regions with enough bank branches. The purpose of the study is to assess the impact of distances on the ability of banks to maintain their presence in the regions, as well as to identify differences in this regard between different categories of banks, taking into account the type of ownership, headquarters location, and bank size. The estimation of the influence of distances on the number of banks ’ offices in the regions that were available at the end of 2018, according to the CBR data, is made using the Poisson regression method for gravity models of interregional trade. The results showed that the largest banks orient their branch distribution strategy around the characteristics of locations, regardless of their distance from the bank headquarters. At the same time, the type of ownership does not matter much, although the actual availability of financial services and financial inclusion across the country is largely ensured by the largest state-owned banks. The strategy of placing offices is also associated with the headquarters location being in Moscow or elsewhere. The remaining regional banks often act locally and consider distance a significant factor of the branch network formation. Despite the 2018 bank licensing reform, the decline in the number of banks is continuing and the level of competition and diversity in the banking sector in the regions remains in question.

The article presents an original typology of Russian regions based on this territory’s drug security. Its underlying method is the calculated index of territorial drug menace (based on the modernized methodology by A. V. Gavrikova). Through analyzing foreign and domestic literature, this paper defines drug security as an area’s ability to confront the drug menace. We assess the drug menace with an index method derived from the four aggregated indicators: morbidity-mortality rate due to drug abuse, total land area, population size, and GRP. Within the typology, we distinguish five levels of drug safety with different drug menace intervals. The methodology was tested on official statistics for Russian regions over 2005 and 2016, which revealed a relatively sustainable drug security situation in the regions. Based on the correlation building process, we have also determined the most severe social and economic consequences of the drug menace in the federal subjects of Russia: increasing crime rates, spreading infectious diseases, and growing numbers of various traumatic injury hazards (including road accidents) among others. We conclude that the proposed research methodology may be further elaborated by means of actively involving the academic community and anti-drug committees.

The purpose of this work is to determine whether preferential mechanisms introduced by the subjects of the Russian Federation for socially beneficial services providers (SBSPs) have (or do not have) any impact on an increase in budgetary funds allocated for subsidizing non-profit organizations (NPOs) in social sector. To identify this dependence, we develop a methodology correlating the legal acts adopted by the federal subjects to introduce preferential mechanisms for SBSPs with the amounts of subsidies to NPOs. The results of the study showed that, although not much time has passed since the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 398 dd. August 8, 2016 was adopted, approving priorities among socially beneficial services, some social sectors experienced positive effects from the introduced preferential mechanisms for SBSPs. The study identifies budget areas where the largest number of federal subjects had their share of subsidies to NPOs increased in the total amount of expenditures for the corresponding area, as well as where regions moved up the ranking for this indicator. To expand the engagement of NPOs as socially beneficial services providers, we propose to amend regional legislation and establish specific preferences for SBSPs, as well as to address this issue in the Methodological Guidelines for Public Authorities and Local Governments on Supporting Socially Oriented Non-Profit Organizations, introduced by the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation.

The article discusses the transformations of personal subsidiary farms belonging to Russia’s rural population over the time that has passed since market reforms started. We refer to the data collected during the two National Agricultural Censuses to run a critical analysis and identify any changes in the range of business activity, production output, and specialization of farming households in different regions of Siberia over the period between 2006 and 2016. To study individual local cases, we use in-depth interviews given by local chiefs and specialists of rural administrations, working on family farms in Tomsk, Tyumen, and Novosibirsk Oblasts. We compare the results of quantitative statistical analysis with the conclusions of qualitative sociological local case studies, both to identify long-term trends and to account for possible distortions of information originating from institutional sources. As a basic hypothesis, we believe that the transformations of private subsidiary farms in different regions do not follow any single trend and that they are greatly influenced by the state and local governments’ agrarian policies, as well as certain specific local factors. The author’s observations confirm this hypothesis. In nearly 25 years since market reforms started, the rural household economy sector has undergone radical changes. On the one hand, it has noticeably lost in scale and given up its former leading position in the structure of production. On the other hand, it has diversified and is now represented by a broad spectrum: from a small family garden to a miniature farm with hired staff. However, in certain cases, government support can deteriorate farming households’ economic situation. Qualitative findings presented in this study may be useful to justify measures aimed at ensuring the sustainable development of rural areas.

The article presents the capabilities of a system designed for managing the implementation of regional development programs and projects in real-time. Their efficiency depends on the quality of informational support for managerial decision making and execution. Based on interpretative structural modeling, we develop a resulting structural model of a supervision and control system, as well as set forth the current scheme for managing the implementation of one of the region’s strategic development programs. As the article shows, this scheme may be improved by following any of the two scenarios, evolutionary or revolutionary, where each has its benefits and drawbacks. We propose to focus on abandoning multi-link procedures when complying with requests from the project office and ensuring relevant and complete data with the requirements of digitalization. Having analyzed the existing intellectual property of government bodies (namely, state information systems), we put forward an option for improving data supply for managerial decision making and monitoring. The article suggests that the revolutionary scenario is an approach aimed more on the efficient implementation of regional development programs. For both scenarios, we prepare schematic diagrams for managing the implementation of regional development programs. If and when applied, they will make it possible to interlock the contours for the management of programs and regional development projects within the requirements of economy digitalization, shorten the cycle and increase the effectiveness of management decision-making by executive and state authorities, provide an opportunity to concentrate resources for creating high-order competitive advantages in the interests of residents of Novosibirsk Oblast and all stakeholders.

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.

The recent years in Kemerovo Oblast - Kuzbass saw a shift in regional power, which paved the way for designing and adopting the Strategy for the socio-economic development of Kemerovo Oblast until 2035 (the Kuzbass-2035 Strategy). The Strategy declared re-industrialization policy, accelerated socio-economic growth, and widespread clustering as primary drivers for regional development, as well as announced the idea of a «two-year breakthrough» (2018-2019). Kuzbass, as conceived by the Strategy’s authors, should become the leader in terms of development rates and standard of living among the regions east of the Urals. At the same time, these promises rely neither on the economic realities prevailing in the region nor on the assessment of its competitiveness. This article puts forward a hypothesis that all the development strategies executed in Kuzbass over the past two decades had failed due to the gap between the resource nature of the region and the local development models used in the region. The goal of the article is to select development models in Kemerovo Oblast, as well as to advise on their transformation and synchronization with the current region’s development strategy. The research findings are applicable to management practices in Kemerovo Oblast, especially those concerning the design and implementation of the mechanisms for harmonizing the interests of business, society, and government.

The article discusses the peculiar development of the Republic of Crimea and the federal city of Sevastopol after their reintegration as parts of Russia with a shortage of fresh water on the peninsula, intentionally created by Ukraine for political reasons. We present results of the Priority Action Plan to ensure domestic and drinking water supply to these new constituent entities of the Russian Federation. The article analyzes the course of water management activities stipulated in the federal special-purpose program «Social and Economic Development of the Republic of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol until 2020», shows what corrections have been introduced into this document and the reasons behind them. We consider a controversial project for river flow transfer, as well as examine structural changes in the region’s economy and environmental impacts of fresh water scarcity. The article presents ways to increase water supplies in Crimea and ongoing comprehensive research addressing this problem.

The article proposes an approach to assessing the attractiveness of large cities of the Russian Federation for residents, businesses, and tourists. While working on this approach, we have determined the private parameters of cities’ attractiveness for individual economic agents and calculated an integrated indicator. The hypothesis of the study relies on the fact that, if a city is placed high in a certain ranking, it is not always guaranteed to hold the top spots in other areas; however, as a rule, it is more typical of outsiders to rank differently in ratings than of front-runner cities. As a research toolkit, we use system analysis, methods of factor, statistical, structural, and dynamic analysis, classification, methods of correlation and regression analysis, economic and mathematical modeling. The approach has been tested on the data for major cities in the Russian Federation. We have both defined sets of particular indicators characterizing certain areas of research and an approach to establishing an integrated indicator of the city’s attractiveness, necessary for a generalized assessment. The presented results ostensibly confirm the initial hypothesis. Under current conditions, state municipal authorities should pay special attention not only to the development of individual cities but to the integrated development of a regional spatial framework, where cities play a pivotal role. The proposed approach to evaluating the attractiveness of Russia’s cities produces logical and comprehensible results applicable in problem-solving.

This article deals with the justification for public investment in cultural heritage conservation projects. As a case study, we consider the Preservation and Development of Russia’s Small Historic Towns and Settlements Project. Its drafting was accompanied by a calculation of the project’s net present value, which made it possible to justify the feasibility of public funding. During a cost-benefit analysis, we found a need for polling different target groups of potential project users on their willingness to pay for the proposed improvements. To this end, we carried out contingent valuation surveys in two historical cities - Rostov Veliky and Chistopol. The article further discusses the methodological aspects of evaluating the efficiency of public investment in Russia and abroad, presents the results of the surveys, and provides various calculations for the project under review.