Content №2 от 2018
Studying Siberia’s Economy: Continuity and Complexity
The article considers approaches to analyzing and determining Siberia’s development trends. We show that the views of the academic community on Siberia as a socially and economically connected region have greatly forestalled the actual practice. One of the reasons why the practice falls behind is the prevalent approach aimed at realizing exceptionally large national economic programs (projects). Nevertheless, over the last 60 years, the Institute of Economics and Industrial Engineering SB RAS has been developing and advancing approaches that can fully substantiate the development of Siberia within modern concepts of the spatial economy (value creation and distribution in the interests both of individual regions and Siberia as a whole). The designed approaches are made to examine synergetic effects that arise from uniting the efforts of individual territories in the Siberian macroregion.
Interlevel Financial Flows in the Budgetary System of the Russian Federation
The article examines direct and reverse financialflows between the regions and the government. It considers objectives of regional and budgetary policies and discusses methodical problems of estimating the size offinancial flows and their interchangeability. We share a view that donor regions and recipient regions should be defined by balance surplus or deficit on all interlevel financial flows, not only based on gratuitous receipts or transfers from the federal budget. This approach makes it possible to eliminate partly the changes in budget legislation as related to allocating financial assistance to the regions. A comparison of the 1996-1998 and present studies shows that the number of donor regions has slightly increased over the period of review. We prove that the consolidation of public finances in Russia has not resulted in a significant decrease in differentiating the levels of regional development. The article reveals a trend: inter-budgetary transfers are partially replaced by direct expenses paid from the federal budget.
Theoretical Arguments and Empirical Evidence in Strategic Planning
The article raises the question whether some theoretical arguments implicitly contained in fundamental strategic documents are supported by empirical evidence. The answer is essential to assessing the validity of the proposed regional policies that, in turn, could vary significantly depending on the used theoretical framework. We show that, despite the latest achievements of regional science, the current regional policy stays within the theoretical concepts of the 20th century. There are obvious problems with empirical confirmation of agglomeration effects. Difficulties in interpreting observable data relate to the use of macroeconomic indicators for testing the initially microeconomic models. This practice is stimulated by methodological challenges and is complicated by the lack of data. We verify empirically the assertions about clear advantages of the territorial concentration of economic activities in cities in terms of production efficiency, national growth, and reducing regional disparities. According to the calculations, higher labor productivity is not the exceptional property of large cities; there is insufficient evidence to support the concentration of economic growth in agglomerations; interregional inequality is growing in most countries, including the ones with high per capita incomes. We conclude that our results contradict to the widely broadcasted statements about the higher economic efficiency of urban agglomerations. It is alarming that some assertions acquire the force of law in the Fundamentals of State Policy for Regional Development of the Russian Federation until 2025 and the discussed Concept for the Strategy of Spatial Development of the Russian Federation until 2025.
Quantification Inequality (the Case of Remuneration Income in the Constituent Entities of The Russian Federation)
The article deals with the study of nature and features of the instruments which are most often used to quantify income inequality. It is shown that, in general case, the results obtained when using different tools for quantitative assessment both of inequality and dynamics of its changes do not coincide. Thus, judgments about inequality based on the results of using the studied tools may differ and even contradict each other. In the case of personal income inequality, this allows one to use a particular tool to manipulate public consciousness and to present changes in a beneficial light (from a certain point ofview or for some persons / groups ofpersons). The estimation of wage income inequalities in constituent entities of the Russian Federation based on official statistics for 2000-2015 allowed calculating the dynamics of the measure of inequality, which was proposed by the author, not only for all the subjects of the Russian Federation, but also for some of their groups, and determining periods of this measure growth and decline.
Siberia from the Perspective of Human Development
The article discusses the problems of human development in Siberian regions. It focuses on the regional aspects identified in the National Human Development Reports and defines necessary resources for human capital development. We recognize that, for a significant proportion of Siberians, poverty substantially restrains their development. It is concluded that there is an archaic social structure of the population with a high proportion of the poorest, a narrow swath of the middle class, and a measly share of the rich formed in Russia. Over the last decade, all the Siberian regions have shown a positive trend in human development. However, the human development indices fell far behind the national average. Having analyzed the indicators of human development in the regions of the Siberian Federal District, we conclude that the quality of life of the population exhibits spatial heterogeneity. The majority of the Siberian regions is attributed to the lower quality of life group. The conditions are most severe in the national republics: Tyva, Khakassia, and Buryatia, where mainly indigenous peoples reside. We notice high social inequality and regional barriers to the development of the human capital.
Measuring Demographic Well-Being of Regions
The article introduces a methodological toolkit for analyzing the current trends of demographic development on complex indicators, which assesses the demographic development of territories in tune with their modernization development level. The demographic well-being of a region is viewed as a combination of qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the population expressed in the population’s structure, social peculiarities, and mobility. Based on the selected indicators, we propose integral indicators to measure the demographic well-being and children’s potential in Russian regions over the period between 2000 and 2014. An information system «Population and Modernization» was made to automate the calculation. The proposed approach allows presenting multidimensional data as a single variable with computed arguments, where different indicators are combined, including all target values, and carrying out analysis in combination with other factors. Indices can be used to develop measures of regional demographic and social policies for making managerial decisions to ensure sustainable demographic development of a territory.
Leaders and Outsiders in Survival of Economically Active Population: Regional Demographic Analysis
The article gives a sociostatic interpretation of the data on the survival of Russian men and women derived from an estimation of the mortality risk probabilities in prime working years according to actuarial tables broken down by capital cities, krays, republics, oblasts, and federal districts. In the depopulation situation that is unfolding in the regions of Russia, the observed increase in life expectancy is recognized as an unstable trend. The reproduction prospects worsen due to decreasing total number of births in 2017. The traditional value system of Russians’ self-preservative behavior is not changing fast enough: the population in the provinces is slow to assimilate modern concepts of healthy lifestyle (health transition). We propose a sociostatic methodology for assessing the culture level of the population’s mass preventive behavior. The article presents new results of estimating the probability of economically active men and women’s survival by the international labor standards. We suggest new approaches to carry out programs for promoting healthy lifestyle concepts and accelerating the health transition process in the eastern regions of Russia.
High-Tech Business Development in Siberia: Problems and Prospects
The article assesses the state of high-tech and knowledge-intensive enterprises, identifies their problems and development prospects in the regions of the Siberian Federal District. We compare approaches to defining high-tech business, estimate the spatial and sectoral structure of high-tech and knowledge-intensive businesses, and outline the main problems and development opportunities for high-tech industrial enterprises and those which provide knowledge-intensive services. The article shows that high-tech and knowledge-intensive business is still not prominent in Siberia since it forms less than 10% of the regional economy. In Siberia, the tertiary sector, represented by knowledge-intensive services, is developing at a higher rate, which incorporates air transportation in the lead with know-edge-intensive industrial services and small high-tech manufacturing companies sharing the second place. Large high-tech companies are dependent on the government strategy in this area. The regions of the Siberian Federal District are highly differentiated with respect to the presence and development level of high-tech companies. Regional leaders in high-tech production include Novosibirsk Oblast, Irkutsk Oblast and Krasnoyarsk Kray. The empirical data confirm that the most favorable conditions for «new-economy» companies to prosper are in the regions with an advanced scientific and educational foundation.
Kravchenko N. A. [email protected]
Kuznetsova S. A. [email protected]
Yusupova A. T. [email protected]
Assessment of International Exhibitions’ Influence on Regional Development
The article considers a hypothesis that granting international status to a regional exhibition increases return for the regional economy. We use the system and comparative analysis as a research method. On the example of a specific international exhibition, we have revealed that in current conditions international exhibitions play an important role of a communication platform broadcasting the latest world trends in the growth of advanced manufacturing technologies and providing interaction among the authorities, business, science, civil society, and media to establish priorities for scientific and technological development. We classify the effects of holding international exhibitions both for region’s economic subjects and various economic spheres of the whole region. The article shows how international exhibitions are used as a site for awarding large and strategic contracts to complete tasks related to import substitution, export assistance, international and inter-regional cooperation, and territory’s brand development.
Ratner A. V. [email protected]
Population Health and Environmental Pollution: Regional Aspects
The article reviews the normative documents regulating the environmental load in the Russian Federation, provides a summary on the contamination, analyzes the dynamics of pollutant air emissions and cancerous diseases in Russia, identifies populated areas with high and low pollutant air emissions. The study is complete with a regression analysis showing that the increase in sulfur dioxide emissions is an acceptable indicator of the malignant neoplasms risk assessment.
Citizen Participation/Non-Participation in Urban Planning
With Russia shifting from state socialism to neoliberal capitalism, the system of urban planning also underwent a change. Citizen participation in urban planning is currently declared as a socially desirable practice ensuring that the interests of ordinary citizens and power holders are in balance, which contributes to the sustainable development of cities and the urban environment. In reality, however, the multiplicity of ways to involve citizens in planning, their specificity and limitations reveal the immaturity of the legal field, complicating the participation process. The article analyzes individual determinants, as well as motivations for citizen participation/non-participation in long-term urban planning based on the data collected through a sociological survey in small towns: Kirov (Kaluga Oblast), Kasimov (Ryazan Oblast), Belev (Tula Oblast). We show that citizen participation in formal urban planning is not a common practice. Only a small proportion of respondents are ready to continually cooperate with the local administration in solving issues of local importance within normatively defined forms of direct participation. Most are ready to become more active only when it is necessary to address an urgent problem, giving preference to informal practices and interventions in the urban landscape that can be attributed to amateur urbanism.
Spatial Development Strategy of Russia: Expectation and Reality
The article presents the stance of the Institute of Economics and Industrial Engineering SB RAS on launching the Spatial Development Strategy of the Russian Federation, on the content of various versions of the strategy concept and its structure. We show that while conceptual approaches to the strategy design were in the works, its implementation priorities, direction, and mechanisms underwent a fundamental change. Whereas the first version of the strategy concept contained a progressive vision of the problems, challenges, priorities, and possible scenarios of Russia’s spatial development and implementation mechanisms, every subsequent iteration lost some of these progressive features. The article details the conceptual defects of the latest versions of the Concept of the Russian Spatial Development Strategy and the Structure of the Russian Spatial Development Strategy, which disrupt attempt to positively evaluate these documents: ignoring new trends, challenges, and threats emerging in the Russian space; favoring the task of mastering funds to implement the strategy only through urban agglomerations advancement while dismissing tasks of social justice and citizens’ human potential support, environmental safety of business and dwelling in specific areas, and others.
Kolomak Ie. A. [email protected]
Kriukov V. A. [email protected]
Melnikova L. V. [email protected]
Seliverstov V. Ye. [email protected]
