Vol 7, No 2 (2017)

The paper reviews Russia’s experience in regional policy development since 1994. Comparison with foreign experience shows that this work has been quite successful, making it possible to reframe key objectives of state regional policy (including spatial justice and state integrity), define the related basic methods that are most effective in Russia’s context, and reconsider the socioeconomic geography of Russia from the perspective of regional policy. Nevertheless, no official document or legislation has yet been adopted to regulate this area. It is proposed to adapt regional policy to the diversity of Russia’s regions. It is suggested that this diversity can be described by the typology of federal subjects, which has been developed using one of the automatic classification algorithms with supervised learning based on the processing of 230 statistical indicators. The indicators are grouped according to four themes by the Delphi method: resources, population, economy, and finance. Nine types of regions are identified. Recommendations on specific kind of regional policy are made for each type.

The spatial distribution of economic activity in Russia is studied by quantitative methods and qualitative analysis. The characteristics of evolution of economic activity distribution have been obtained with an approach based on analysis of Markov chains and mobility indices. The study has shown that the processes of the spatial concentration of production continue to unfold in the modern Russian economy. In addition to preserving and strengthening positions of existing centers, it is possible to observe the formation of new ones and simultaneously a certain weakening of former resource centers. Analysis of the evolution of this distribution has demonstrated the presence of an active poverty trap and a wealth trap, as well as a tendency toward the formation of an intermediate group of federal subjects with regard to their economic activity level. With preserving trends of the study period, the final distribution of regions in terms of economic activity level shows the formation of a rather wide pole of relative poverty and a wealth pole that concentrates a significant share of produced value added. The emerging group of regions with the average level of development is relatively small. In such circumstances, regional policy aimed at stimulating developed regions only strengthens this polarization. We consider that a more sensible policy would be to reduce disproportions in territorial development in order to avoid excessive deepening of interregional disparities and inequality.

The paper concerns changes in air transport connectivity of Russia’s territory for the period of 1990–2015 by aggregating of adjacent airports and air hubs in 20 air clusters. The dynamics of air passenger traffic between large cities is considered as an indicator of changes in the territorial structure of the economy and population distribution in the country. Analysis has shown that disintegration of a complex, polycentric, and well-developed system of neighboring air links has taken place in post-Soviet Russia. Structure of this system has become much simpler, with pronounced overcentralization of Moscow (instead of the previous centralization) and reduction of the power of attraction of second- and third-order interregional centers. Divisional fragmentation and shrinkage of the socioeconomic space in not only the Asian but also the European part of the country have occurred. Current Russian airline system is characterized by weak neighborhood connectivity. A slow disintegration process between the western and eastern parts of the country is going.

The paper uses A.Yu. Shevyakov’s approach to the decomposition of the Gini coefficient into normal and excessive inequalities, the full deflation method for determining real income and real labor productivity, correlation and regression analysis, and the construction of Cobb–Douglas production functions. Three differentiation levels of normal and excessive inequalities (poverty line, social minimum line, and social well-being line) are proposed. For Russian regions in 2013, the study has found an inverse relationship between real per capita income and the Gini coefficient of excessive inequality, as well as a direct relationship between real per capita income and the Gini coefficient of normal inequality, except for the three most affluent regions, which show a reverse trend of decline in normal inequality. Correlations of normal and excessive inequalities with general development indicators, composition and dynamics of the population, the structure of income and gross regional product, sectoral structure of the economy, and the population’s wealth are revealed. A positive correlation for normal inequality and a negative correlation for excessive inequality with real output in Russian regions are confirmed based on the inclusion of Gini coefficients in the five-factor interregional Cobb–Douglas production function. It is concluded that excessive inequality, on the one hand, is a consequence of the low development level and, on the other hand, suppresses production possibilities and incentives. Normal inequality promotes economic development, which is first accompanied by a growth in normal inequality, followed by a decline.

The historic–geographical dynamics and nature of the exploration of Russia’s Northern and Arctic territories are described beginning from the 17th century. These territories immediately began to play an important economic role, because the furs obtained from there served as a source of monetary metals. The country’s budget, in fact, depended on furs, and the successes of exploring the North (and East) were especially impressive then. For the entire three-century-long period, this exploration has been most closely associated with extraction and export of raw materials, which has determined Russia’s specialization in global commodity markets, characteristic of every historical period. The article overviews how each of the three centuries that preceded the Soviet period contributed to this process and paved the way fort the Soviet spurt in the development of Russia’s Northern and Arctic territories. The authors also compare the historic–geographical features of exploration of Russia’s Arctic and Northern territories with the similar process in the American North.

The paper analyzes the development level of the institute of public–private partnership (PPP) in Russia’s mining complex and the partnership mechanism, within which the state, using RF Investment Fund monies, assists investors in underdeveloped areas not only in creating infrastructure but also in implementing necessary environmental protection measures. In order to analyze the properties of such a partnership mechanism, the authors have worked out economic and mathematical tools that make it possible to effectively divide spending between the state and a private investor in development of the mineral resource base. The toolkit combines integer mathematical programming and a set of predictive models that describe the functioning of a resource area. The methodology of its application is illustrated with a case study of Zabaikalskii krai, for which a program for developing polymetallic fields is being worked out based on the PPP mechanism; the sensitivity of its decisions to changes in the main partnership parameters is analyzed. The results of numerical experiments confirm the rationality of using this mechanism in an underdeveloped area. They show that, in addition to a coherent approach to assessing the specific amount of funds to be allocated to infrastructural and environmental projects, an important role is played by transaction costs accounting, the level and structure of which affect the effectiveness indicators achieved not only by a private investor, but also by the state.