Economic potential and types of economic development of large municipal structures. Part 1

In the present context, a significant potential for economic development of the Russian Federation is concentrated in large municipal structures. Research by foreign and domestic scientists, as well as the results of research by the authors is used as the initial data. The subject of the research is the driving forces for the development of economic potential of 34 large cities of the Russian Federation. The hypothesis is the assumption that there is a correlation between the types of economic growth and the economic potential of the territories of large municipal structures. The research methodology includes three stages: 1) classification of municipal structures according to the type of economic development by the method of hierarchical cluster analysis using the statistical package IBM SPSS Statistics; 2) assessment of the economic potential of large cities using the system of indicators (basic and used resource potential; infrastructure and innovative potentials) and an integrated indicator; and 3) comparative studies of municipal clusters by components of economic potential. The results obtained help to divide all large municipal structures into 4 clusters according to the type of economic development: 1) Cluster A, characterized by ultra-high decelerating growth rates in the volume of shipped products; 2) Cluster B, which has high rates in the volume of shipped products growing from year to year; 3) Cluster C with the growth rates of shipped products above average, with slow acceleration; 4) Cluster D, which has the lowest average annual growth rate without acceleration. The assessment of the integral indicator of the economic potential of large cities shows the dependence of the type of their economic development on the economic potential. The comparative analysis identifies priority areas for improving the economic potential. The presented results can be used to assess the real type of economic development of large cities in the Russian Federation and their economic potential, what will contribute to the development of measures for priority fields of expansion of the latter. A further field of research is the adaptation of the methodology for municipal structures with the population of less than 500 thousand people; however, it is difficult to obtain statistical information for these municipal structures.