Characterizing export specialization of northwestern federal district regions within the framework of the economic complexity concept

The issue of achieving economic development, which is especially acute in the context of geopolitical turbulence, is of interest to government representatives and scientists, both Russian and foreign. One of the ways to resolve it is to make the economy more complex, and identify the most and least developed segments. The latter is implemented within the framework of the concept of economic complexity. The aim of the work is to study specifics of the export specialization of Northwestern Federal District regions. To achieve the goal, we address tasks such as determining the export specialization of the regions of the Northwest of Russia, identifying the commodity structure of the received specializations, and determining the micro-specializations of the regions within the district. Based on the statistical data of the federal customs administrations on foreign trade of the country’s constituent entities, we calculate the index of identified comparative advantages. Through the assessment of the index values and the contribution of goods to the total volume of exports of the regions, we determine the goods of the export specialization of Northwestern Federal District regions and reveal the main specialization of the district. Among the goods characterized by a small contribution to the total volume of exports of the regions, the search for promising micro-specializations is carried out in two ways. As part of the first method, among the goods exported by Northwestern Federal District regions, we highlight those in whose supplies Russia occupies a leading position in the world. The second way is to assess the markets of developing countries. Scientific novelty of the research lies in the definition of goods of export specialization of Northwestern Federal District regions using the tools of the concept of economic complexity. Information base of the study includes data from federal customs administrations, the financial company MSCI, foreign databases Trade Map and The Observatory of Economic Complexity, as well as Russian and foreign research in the field of industry specializations. The results of the study can be used by regional authorities in the development of strategic documents, to substantiate economic policy in the search for promising economic specializations and market niches.