Budgets of regional centers in the north-west: tools for modernization or survival?

The paper opens a series of studies on the development of regional administrative centers. We put forward a hypothesizes that the budgetary policy regarding regional centers does not correspond to their current budget condition and is not focused on such development that would turn cities into the pillars of the balanced and harmonious spatial development of Russia. In this regard, the goal of the study is to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the budget system and the conditions of its functioning in regional administrative centers. We use economic and mathematical methods and reveal that the changes in geopolitical and geo-economic conditions in Russia had a negative impact on the budget systems of regional centers; it was manifested in the predominance of financial assistance in the structure of total revenues, in the stable dynamics of imbalance and in a decrease in the level of budget security of the population. We use official data of Rosstat and the Federal Treasury to find out key trends in the development of regional centers of the North-West of Russia since 2011. We conclude that the budgets of regional centers are trying to survive and are not ready to implement social transformation and promote economic growth. Based on this, we define major development directions for regional centers. The materials of the paper can be of use in the educational sphere, in the study of financial and economic disciplines; they can also be used by scientists as a basis for further research and by management bodies of various levels to substantiate management decisions. Further research will be devoted to the study of the effectiveness of management of the budget of the regional center, the level of debt burden and the state of intergovernmental fiscal relations.