Socio-economic development of territories: problems of regional policy efficiency

The revival of local self-government in the Russian Federation contributed to the increase in territories’ responsibilities for the solution of socio-economic issues. However, during the whole period of this institution formation the authorities failed to realize its potential due to a lack of municipalities’ economic independence, which to a certain extent depends on the policy implemented by federal and regional government bodies in relation to local territories. The idea is that the principles of Russian federalism and fiscal legislation ensure resource centralization at the level of federation and its subjects. As a result, local budgets are characterized by subsidies and a lack of own funds to finance local activities. This policy results in the gap between formal functions of local governments and possibilities of their implementation, indicating the need for significant amendments of the regional policy in relation to local territories. This particularly concerns the improvement of fiscal policy in terms of formation of the municipalities’ fiscal base and inter-budgetary relations; the encouragement of local governments to increase their revenues, improve cost efficiency, strengthen economy and build institutions of local development; the enhancement of the efficiency of used potential of local self-government. The state of local budgets, the sustainable development of local areas and the reduction in intraregional socio-economic differentiation can be considered as indicators of effective regional socio-economic policy.