Home – Home – Jornals – Region: Economics and Sociology 2021 number 3

This article offers an approach to forecasting long-term options for the social and economic development of Russia’s eastern regions that covers goal setting, mobilizing resources, and selecting mechanisms to achieve the set goals, on a systematic basis. We develop a methodology to coordinate the conditions for regional development at different hierarchical levels, in particular, to ensure that the key macroeconomic determinants of economic growth in the Russian Federation are correctly translated to the regions. We also suggest an evaluation plan to assess the impact of investment on increasing gross regional product (GRP) for the region, the country, and its eastern part. The plan is based on analyzing the “investment - fixed assets - GRP - investment" cycle, changes in fixed asset age composition, and ROA ratios. The article substantiates the maximin criterion of GRP resource distribution aimed at reducing the gap between the performance of regional economic sectors and the improvement of infrastructure, social services, and household incomes in the regions. Newly drafted algorithms describe sharing the proposed methods inside a set of simulation regional macro-models. Here we propose a three-stage systemic forecasting plan, where the stages of top-down and bottom-up calculations are complemented with their mutual convergence. We study the characteristics of the social and economic situation in the Russian East. Finally, we conduct experimental regional development calculations until 2035 under a moderately optimistic scenario in relation to the key economic factor levels (the population, household incomes, a growing share of investment in GRP, etc.) and analyze their results.

The article deals with minimizing social losses associated with the inability to achieve all the set goals amid limited economic policy instruments that managers of the socio-economic system can actually use. We give a critique of the currently available approaches to minimizing the social loss function. Then we provide an example of how economic policy instruments were implemented nationwide in Russia between 2018 and 2019. It was a period when the Bank of Russia’s application of monetary policy instruments aimed at achieving a single goal only, the one related to inflation, had not been coordinated with an increase in VAT by the Ministry of Finance. Using the AD-AS model, we show a negative impact of these decisions on both economic and investment growth rates, which in their turn have a long-term effect on economic growth. The problem discussed in this paper is relevant at the regional level: when establishing regional development roadmaps, it is essential to achieve an optimal combination of short-term and long-term goals. The authors present a model for minimizing the social loss function (SLF) as a mathematical programming problem. Within this proposed problem, we outline an approach to finding the optimal solution that provides the maximum approximation to achieving not only short-term but also long-term goals of economic policy for a particular time with consideration to the restrictions on the use of its tools. Since minimizing the social loss function is carried out for an interval, the article introduces a concept of “bliss trajectory" in contrast to the “bliss point" category used in the theory of economic policy for solving static optimization problems. We also describe how to solve such a problem with the conditional gradient method and give a step-by-step algorithm for this kind of solution.

The article is devoted to studying differences in regional economic growth models identified with the shift-share technique to decompose growth structurally, which allows explaining a regional growth rate deviation (“shift") from the expected values under the assumption that all regions have identical sectoral structures. As required by the original formulation of this analysis method, such a shift is decomposed into sectoral (compositional) and regional (competitive) components. We divide the regional shift into components defined by the effects of potential spatial spillover and local competitiveness through a spatial approach. The economic activity indicators are gross value added and average annual employment in the fourteen-sector nomenclature across the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. We carry out the analysis in a dynamic setting over the period between 2004 and 2019. According to its results, the decisive contribution to regional differentiation in growth rates has been an inherent competitive effect, measured by a regional shift and arising from the same industry performing dissimilarly in several regions. The spatial decomposition of regional growth rates has separated the contribution of the region’s inherent competitiveness from that of its local environment. The first factor dominates, meaning that the regional (competitive) shift in most regions, regardless of its sign, has resulted from a local competitive effect rather than the spatial spillover of economic growth.

A tenth of the world’s forest resources are concentrated in the Asian part of Russia, but the efficiency of their use is not high. The forest industry in the Asian part of Russia has vast development potential. However, it is also characterized by raw material export orientation, low value-added production, insufficient reforestation measures, and underdeveloped forest infrastructure. This article analyzes the main trends and prospects for the forest industry development in the Asian part of Russia. By analyzing statistical indicators, official program documents, and media materials, we arrive to the following conclusion: the factors mentioned above, together with the lack of a systematic government policy aimed at supporting producers, carrying out measures to protect and restore the ecological situation in the regions and regulate forest relations severely impede the development of the forest industry. It is necessary to establish a new national industrial policy for the industry’s effective functioning and intensification.

The article exams the shadow economy in public passenger transport across Russian regions. The goal of this research is to assess the effect of a newly established cashless system on the size of declared revenues by domestic transport organizations. The research relevancy is expressed in quantitative evaluations of how the cashless system, along with discounts for cashless payments, helps combat the concealment of revenues by transport organizations. We use an econometric analysis of panel data for the period between 2014 and 2019. The Fixed effects model is chosen as the best among others. The econometric model considers heteroscedasticity and endogeneity of the average bus fares. The obtained data indicate that the cashless system with payments by debit and credit cards leads to increased transport organizations’ declared revenues. In contrast, the same cashless system with payments by transport cards does not lead to such an increase. In 2019, cashless payments were spread more in municipal and public transport rather than in commercial vehicles.

Modern Russia is characterized by a frequent discrepancy between the places of employment and the residence of the able-bodied population. Combined with the new opportunities for its spatial mobility, this has led to the development of intra-Russian and intraregional labor migrations. Among them, a significant place is occupied by pendulum migration (daily departure to the place of work in another locality) and shift labor organization (departure to a new place of work for a long time due to the irrationality of daily return to the place of permanent residence). The phenomenon of shift work historically grew out of the pre-revolutionary otkhodnichestvo, which does not fully coincide with that of seasonal work. Our contemporaries are increasingly using the term “otkhodnichestvo" finding direct parallels with shift work. Such work is becoming one of the most dominant areas of labor migration and an active factor of spatially mediated depopulation, analyzed in the article published in the previous issue of this journal. Unfortunately, statistics do not allow us to obtain objective information about the shift labor phenomenon, and therefore its estimates by different researchers differ significantly. Legally, shift work in Russia is regulated only from the point of view of this employment relationship between the employer and the employee. However, the article shows that this work situation determines not only the special organization of labor but also the special order of organizing the lives of millions of Russian citizens and the spatial organization of economic and social activities in the regions and municipalities of Russia. The concentration of shift work is noted in Moscow and several other large cities, and in poorly populated areas of Russia, it is localized in stationary shift settlements. They are proposed to be considered as a kind of components of the settlement system with the legal establishment of relations with local self-government bodies.

The article presents an analysis of studies by Russian and foreign scientists, which demonstrated the relevance of the problems of social inequality at the regional level. The purpose of this study is to develop an approach for dividing Russian regions into groups based on the level of socio-economic development and development of the educational system. Another goal is to scientifically substantiate the importance of the social elevator “Education " (in relation to school education), not only at the level of an individual gifted person but also at the regional level. A desk study was carried out using an adapted model of multivariate ABC analysis. The integral parameter proposed by the authors is based on such factors as the results of the unified state exam, the region’s performance in the All-Russian Olympiad for schoolchildren, and the project competition Big Challenges, as well as the presence of highly rated schools. As a result, three enlarged groups were identified among the regions of the Russian Federation, which make it possible to assess the possibilities and potential of the provided social elevator “Education " in certain regions for the development of gifted individuals. The article presents recommendations for improving the effectiveness of regional education policy for regions losing high-quality human capital. The results of the analysis can be used to form regional programs for the strategic development of the education system and social elevators for gifted individuals in the context of interregional inequality. In the future, it is possible to research the intercountry mobility of gifted individuals, as well as a quantitative analysis of migration flows associated with the choice of the next level of education and the volume of the “reverse of talents."

This article examines the background and conditions for China’s Belt and Road Initiative, how it is perceived and reacted to in the world. We also present the results of the agreements reached by the Heads of State of Russia, Mongolia, and China. The article classifies 32 projects within the economic corridor, highlighting the most priority ones. A review of research done by scientists from these three countries in infrastructure development, regional integration, and interstate cooperation made it possible to determine the states’ potential and development levels in terms of financial and natural resource possession. In addition, we analyze and compare each party’s strategic interests and benefits from the economic corridor to be built, identify their peculiarities, and assess the existing mechanisms for trilateral cooperation. This work proves the need to work on interstate coordination mechanisms. Particular attention is paid to describing the essence, goals, and objectives of Mongolia’s Steppe Road national program, later renamed Path for Development, and the results of measures taken by the Mongolian government to create road transport infrastructure as part of the economic corridor. Examples of such measures are several road construction projects under the Path for Development, and the Tavan-Tolgoi - Gashuunsukhait and Tavan-Tolgoi - Zuunbayan railways. The problems of road transport infrastructure are related to the financial difficulties in refinancing the profits coming from the Ulaanbaatar Railbus, the lack of investment from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Silk Road Fund, despite these financial institutions having decided to participate in financing road transport projects. There is criticism toward the fact that Chinese companies act as the principal contractors in the Mongolian-based projects financed by grant aid and a concessional loan from the Chinese government, while Mongolian ones are only involved as subcontractors. The Mongolian side has taken the initiative to attract investment from countries outside the set contracts or international financial institutions, which the other two parties, Russia and China, find disagreeable.

The article examines the current state and eco-economic development of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation, using the example of one of the Arctic regions of the European North of Russia, Arctic Karelia. The purpose of the article is to identify the key problems and contradictions of the ecological and economic development of Arctic Karelia in the perception of the region’s population. In the context of limited statistical information on these issues, the main emphasis is on the use of sociological research methods. The principal methods applied in the study are dialectical, sociological analysis (questionnaire survey), and statistical analysis. Based on the results of an empirical study, the Arctic Karelian population estimated the state of the natural environment and its dynamics in the world, Russia, the Arctic, the region of residence, and the immediate place of residence. We received the residents’ detailed assessment of the natural environment for the following components: air quality, surface water quality, noise level, state of forests and parks, and the level of domestic pollution. These data were obtained and analyzed, including in a breakdown by regions, making it possible to use the research results to draft differentiated regulatory measures both at the level of regional government and in creating software tools for Arctic Karelia’s development and establishing a special economic regime in the Russian Arctic. These results are scientifically significant due to the unique nature of our research object. The region of Arctic Karelia, formed in July 2020, has not been previously studied, firstly, as a separate territorial entity, and secondly, as thoroughly as it was in this work. The study is of practical importance to federal authorities as an information base for carrying out administrative tasks, as well as to regional and municipal authorities, e.g., in preparing strategic and program documents for the development of the Arctic region and establishing a special economic regime in the Russian Arctic.