Economic and Social Changes: Facts, Trends, Forecast @volnc-esc-en
Статьи журнала - Economic and Social Changes: Facts, Trends, Forecast
Все статьи: 1640
Regional budget for 2017-2019: surplus or economic growth?
Статья научная
At the end of 2016, the Vologda Oblast approved its budget for 2017-2019. At first glance, its parameters are quite optimistic if we recall that from 2009 to 2015 the budget was significantly unbalanced. The planned annual surplus of 2.5 billion rubles is planned in the upcoming budget cycle. The budget surplus exceeding this sum was registered only in 2004. These projections are not based on the expected sustained economic growth, but on the terms of agreements with the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation on the allocation of financial assistance to the oblast in the form of budget loans. The forecast of socio-economic development elaborated by the Vologda Oblast Government retains low growth rates of all macroeconomic indicators; due to this fact it is unlikely that sufficient financial resources could be generated: the average annual growth rate of the budget's own revenues will not reach even 4%. The positive balance of the treasury is expected to be reached with the help of fiscal consolidation: the amount of government spending as a share of gross regional product will decrease to 9% to 2020 against 13% on average over the period of 2005-2016...
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Regional budget of 2012 - 2014: stability is delayed
Статья научная
The article presents the new results of ongoing research carried out in ISEDT RAS on regional budgeting of the Vologda Oblast in the medium term1. Judging by the main budget parameters, the situation in the budget sphere will become aggravated in foreseeable future. According to forecasts, the deterioration of financial conditions of metal manufacture, the basic industry in the region, will not allow the regional budget to restore its pre-crisis level of revenues in 2012. They will be below the level of 2011. The reduction of federal financial support creates additional dangers for the regional budget burdened with debts. The public debt of the Vologda Oblast, which has reached a critical level, increases the risk of providing the investment with financial resources, which are necessary to modernize the regional economy. However, despite this dramatic situation, there are the reserves to ensure social security in the region.
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Regional budget-2016: priorities do not change
Статья научная
The budgets of all levels of the Russian Federation for 2016 were drawn up in conditions of the systemic social and economic crisis in the country, the worsened foreign situation, connected with the instability of commodity markets and the strengthening of anti-Russian sanctions. These factors prompted the Russian Government to abandon the practice of three-year budget planning and return to a one-year budget. The results of the budget process show that the pressure on sub-federal budgets continues to grow. According to the ISEDT RAS calculations, 76 of the 85 regions had a deficit budget in 2015, in 60 regions the real income tax payments decreased and the debt burden exceeded 50% of their own revenues. Unfortunately, the Russian Government did not propose any measures to address the budget crisis of regions observed since 2012. On the contrary, the primacy of inter-budgetary cooperation was to shift social obligations from the state to the RF subjects and replace grant financial support of these commitments by budgetary loans...
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Regional competition for confidence: features of formation
Статья научная
The increase in economic independence of the regions inevitably leads to an increase in the quality requirements of the regional economic policy. The key to successful regional policy, both during its development and implementation, is the understanding of the necessity of gaining confidence (at all levels), and the inevitable participation in the competition for confidence. The importance of confidence in the region is determined by its value as a competitive advantage in the struggle for partners, resources and tourists, and attracting investments. In today's environment the focus of governments, regions and companies on long-term cooperation is clearly expressed, which is impossible without a high level of confidence between partners. Therefore, the most important competitive advantages of territories are intangible assets such as an attractive image and a good reputation, which builds up confidence of the population and partners. The higher the confidence in the region is, the broader is the range of potential partners, the larger is the planning horizon of long-term concerted action, the better are the chances of acquiring investment, the higher is the level of competitive immunity of the territories...
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Regional corruption in business
Статья научная
On the basis of sociological studies by monitoring the article discloses the corruption indicators in the business field under the conditions of the subsidized region. It is noted that under the conditions of bureaucratization of public relations the corruption becomes a specific social institution, within the framework of which the relationship between business and authority is formed. The business representatives’ view on the peculiarities of corruption spread in the Arkhangelsk region is under review.
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Статья научная
As an attempt to extract positive experience to overcome difficulties of an extraordinary nature, we tried to appeal to historic examples of active participation of science in solving problems of regional development due to the general national tasks. The paper deals with the experience of the Commission for Study of Natural Productive Forces under the Head of the Republic of Komi (1993-2004), which is of scientific interest regarding the use of the results of research works of strategic planning and project management, taking into account the extraordinary circumstances caused by the sharp transformation of Russia’s economic structure. The article shows that it happens in a more constructive way when researchers and practitioners are united organizationally within the framework of the “problem - program” methodology. The second line of analysis of such experience is to identify the correspondence between the scientific interpretation ofthe concept of“productive forces” and the content ofstate strategic planning documents. To return productive forces to the system “science - practice”, it is necessary to eliminate the substitution of this concept by resources and production and to select appropriate indicators of their measurement. The main subject of this dimension becomes “force”, which is presented as the force and result of natural processes, scientific and technological progress and new forms of production organization.
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Статья научная
The article is devoted to the issue of housing affordability on the Russian market. Based on official statistics, the authors reveal the main trends of the regional housing market development. The article reviews government priorities in the housing policy and presents calculations of the housing affordability index in the Vologda Oblast according to several scenarios. The authors present the results of the ISEDT RAS population survey conducted in the Vologda Oblast concerning the level of people's satisfaction with their housing conditions. The results indicate that only 37% of the population are satisfied with their housing, 13% - rated their living conditions as bad. The authors research best practices of a number of constituent entities of the Russian Federation in order to address the shortage, quality and affordability of housing. Numerous studies by Russian scientists indicate the necessity of forming and introducing new tools and mechanisms to improve housing affordability in the Russian practice...
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Regional innovation system construction and deepening reformation
Статья научная
The article considers the stages of formation of innovation systems in China’s regions. It presents the current condition of these systems and the specifics of their present and future development. The topical issues concerning the improvement of innovation development management at the regional level are highlighted.
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Статья научная
The importance of studying policy-making issues related to anti-sanctions legislation and practical measures to support the population and business at the level of Russia’s Arctic regions in the context of sanctions pressure is associated with the major role of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation, which has geopolitical, strategic and socio-economic significance. The article provides a brief overview of the history of sanctions pressure and response measures based on a comparative analysis of foreign and Russian studies; we also conduct a content analysis of the anti-sanctions legislation in the Russian Arctic regions for 2022-2023 and current regional measures to support businesses and population to ensure socio-economic stability. Among the Arctic regions, the Komi and Sakha (Yakutia) republics are leaders in terms of the number of regulatory legal acts and the number of regional anti-sanctions measures, while the Nenets and Chukotka Autonomous areas are outsiders. The Krasnoyarsk Territory, the Yamal- Nenets Autonomous Area, the Republic of Karelia, the Arkhangelsk and Murmansk regions are Arctic territories that conduct quite moderate activities fulfilling the requirements of Presidential Decree 121, dated March 16, 2022. In this regard, it is necessary to continue to improve and update anti-sanctions legislation and anti-sanctions measures at the regional level in order to adjust the socio-economic sphere properly. It is necessary to study certain areas of regional support, for example taxation issues, more thoroughly. It is recommended that the authorities of the Arctic regions pay attention to regional taxes, which can play an important role in ensuring socio-economic stability. The content analysis also shows that there is no uniformity in policy-making activities at the level of the Russian Arctic regions, and a multidirectional practice of using state support measures to ensure socio-economic stability in the face of sanctions pressure is applied. Currently, it is necessary to streamline and balance the anti-sanctions legislation and measures it envisages at the level of the Russian Arctic regions.
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Статья научная
After the adoption of the Strategy for Spatial Development of the Russian Federation until 2025 in February 2019, special importance was attached to the issues concerning the formation of the coherent system of the RF entity’s regional policy on the development of municipalities, which takes into account socio-economic and geographical features of different territories. In this regard, the goal of this article is to develop methodological tools for efficiency assessment and for analyzing the specifics of interregional policy in the RF entity (on the materials of the Vologda Oblast). Scientific novelty of the research consists, first, in the fact that it uses expert opinions, which were obtained during a questionnaire survey of the Vologda Oblast municipalities heads, and second, in the analysis based on our own criteria of spatial (territorial) aspects reflection in strategies for development of constituent entities within the Northwestern Federal District. The research uses methods such as analysis, synthesis, comparison, generalization, methodological tools based on economic and statistical, comparative analysis, and expert survey. We reveal that, despite the efforts of state authorities of the Vologda Oblast to develop municipalities, the number of problems, concerning interregional policy implementation, still exist. They are: insufficient consideration of specifics and features of certain municipalities’ development; bureaucratic obstacles in the cooperation between state and local authorities; limited powers of local authorities, etc. The results of the conducted research might be used in the activities of state authorities of the Russian Federation entities. Also, the research might serve as the foundation for further scientific studies on the ways to improve the forms, methods, and tools of the interregional policy implementation.
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Regional public debt: trends and formation specifics
Статья научная
The paper shows that current problems in the Russian economy are largely internal; external factors only multiply them. A significant reason for the emergence of regional public debt in modern Russia lies in the instability of the main types of budget revenues amid growing expenditure obligations. Their growth was significantly dominated by the directives of the federal center, including the first and second editions of the President’s May Decrees, which are, as a rule, only partially supported with transfers from the federal budget or not supported with them at all. At the same time, the structure of regional budgets has been experiencing a continuous increase in the share of mandatory social expenditures and a continuous decrease in the share of capital investments. We show that in these conditions constituent entities of Russia borrow funds to address social issues rather than to stimulate regional investment development. The “residual” principle of financing the social sphere is replaced by the “residual” principle of financing the regional economic sphere of production development and regional infrastructure. It is empirically established that the investment activity of regional authorities involves intensification of debt activity. Having compared the volume and dynamics of debt obligations of Russia’s constituent entities with the provision of expenditures with budget revenues we see that the rapid growth of debt obligations of the authorities of Russia’s constituent entities and the increase in the debt burden on sub-federal budgets pose an actual threat to the stability of territorial budget systems and economic security of regions and the state. We show that territorial convergence of regional public debt in the context of federal districts hides the territorial divergence of regional debt that has increased under the load of obligations to implement the May Decrees and under the lingering and extremely high differentiation of regional budget revenues.
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Regional reserves for raising life expectancy in the conditions of convergence of its level
Статья научная
The goal of the paper is to assess changes in the regional differentiation of life expectancy in Russia for 2003-2017, to consider the features of the level and growth rate of life expectancy, gender differences in the indicator, the difference between urban and rural areas, the structure of mortality due to death, the level of infant mortality in the regions of Russia; the paper also defines regional reserves for further increase in life expectancy. The relevance of the topic is due to significant regional differentiation, Russia’s significant lagging behind developed countries, and the goals associated with this field. We arrange Russian regions into nine groups with annual intervals of the indicator and evaluate the changes in the groups in 2003-2017. We find out that in the conditions of growing life expectancy there has been a marked convergence of regions; they approached the Russian average level according to this indicator. Regional convergence has occurred at the expense of the extreme groups in terms of the indicator, and primarily due to the lagging regions getting closer to the leaders; i.e. we observe the catch-up nature of convergence. This suggests that over the period of 2004-2017, the relatively easy-to-implement life expectancy growth reserves, which are typical for low-indicator regions, have been used quite well, while further growth in high-indicator regions is not an easy task, since the possibilities of first-order factors, such as gender differentiation, the difference between urban and rural indicators, the share of mortality from external causes, and infant mortality rate, have been largely implemented. Nevertheless, all nine groups of regions still have reserves to increase life expectancy, due to certain growth factors of the first order. The groups with the most unfavorable level of the indicator have the greatest reserves. However, factors such as the lag in the rural indicator and the value of infant mortality in the group with very high life expectancy provide opportunities for further increase due to growth factors of the first order.
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Regional social capital and multiple modernization in Russia. On defining the problem
Статья научная
The article raises the issues of relationship between multiple modernization and social capital in Russia’s regions. Social capital is considered as a factor that determines the specifics and pace of modernization. The article also shows the ways to measure social capital and the necessity to develop the indicators for making socio-cultural portraits of the regions with regard to Russia’s conditions.
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Regional sociological research experience
Статья научная
The article presents the experience of the Institute of Socio-Economic Development of Territories of RAS in conducting sociological research on the territory of the Vologda Oblast and the Northwestern Federal District. It describes the historical aspects of formation of the system for public opinion monitoring and examines its theoretical and methodological foundations. The author of the article analyzes the structure of monitoring indicators and provides a brief interpretation of research findings that reflect social well-being and social perception trends. In addition, the paper analyzes people's attitude toward the activities of federal and regional authorities, trends in social well-being, consumer sentiment and also the complex indicator - the index of public sentiment in the region - developed by ISEDT RAS researchers. The results of sociological studies carried out at ISEDT RAS correlate with the dynamics of the all-Russian public opinion polls conducted by the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM), Levada-Center, etc...
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Regional sociology and management: a “roadmap” for interaction
Статья научная
The article considers the main directions of development of the domestic regional sociology in modern conditions. It contains several research findings of the Russian Academy of Sciences fundamental programs. The author outlines the main directions (“roadmap”) of the interaction between sociological forces and actors of regional administration. The conclusion, substantiated in the article, is that the main mechanism of interaction between regional sociology and administration subjects consists in bilateral and multilateral partnership between academic and university centers, authorities, business and non-profit organizations (NPOs). In addition, the author provides some characteristics of the potential of regional sociology in the implementation of the roadmap.
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Regional specialization and agglomeration effects in the Russian economy
Статья научная
The main goal of economic science which is the search for ways to meet the existing needs by means of limited resources is of particular relevance today in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, the rapid recession of the world economy, reduced export volumes and energy prices decline. Agglomeration effects represent savings of the region’s assets from their more efficient distribution based on specialization. The purpose of the research is to develop theoretical and methodological aspects of specialization and agglomeration effects, which determined the need to solve the following tasks: (1) to provide an overview of approaches related to the study issues, (2) to assess the regional specialization of Russia and calculate agglomeration effects in agriculture, mining and processing sectors of industry, and the service sector, (3) to build a model of agglomeration effects impact on the regions’ economic development. The article presents the systematization of research on agglomeration processes through the allocation of groups of works that are based on the classification of Duranton and Puga, territorial and geographical approaches, the study of related diversity, the use of the cross-sectional analysis results, sorting processes, and agglomeration economy analysis. The economic point of evaluating a region’s specialization is to identify the industries in which it has competitive advantages in order to attract targeted resources. The assessment of agglomeration effects in Russia has shown that not all regions fully realize the advantages of specialization. The constructed models allowed to determine that (1) labor remains the key factor of development in agricultural and industrial regions; (2) roads are not a significant infrastructure indicator of development; (3) agglomeration effects in agriculture and services do not provide the desired result of the per capita GRP increment; (4) the manufacturing sector development is still an important condition. The article proposes a model allowing the assessment of the impact of agglomeration factors and regional specialization, the results of which can become an information basis for the development of regulatory actions in regional management. The research can be valuable for both the researchers and decision-makers in the field of spatial development.
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Regional system of economic and social factors in the formation of innovation development resources
Статья научная
Accelerated reorientation of the Russian economy on innovation development and the implementation of new industrialization and import substitution tasks are major strategic problems for Russia; finding the solutions to these problems will make it possible to overcome the lag in socio-economic development and eliminate the consequences of the economic crisis and sanctions of Western countries. Therefore, the goal of the study is to identify the key resource indicators that determine the level of use of innovation potential of territorial systems and to build on this basis our own approach in order to analyze and adjust modernization development in regions. Research methods are based on the use of economic and mathematical methods, factor and correlation analysis. We identify factors that have the greatest impact on innovation indicators. We assess the degree of their impact on innovation development. The list of factors we have identified is used to assess the degree of differentiation of regions within the Central Federal District according to the level of resource provision of innovations...
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Regional tax gap and assessment of its determining factors
Статья научная
Reduction of the tax gap at the regional level contributes to development of tax potential and the increase of regions’ budget security. The purpose of the article is to study the tax gap at the regional level in the Russian Federation (RF) on the basis of a comprehensive assessment of factors that determine it. Approaches to the determination of the tax gap at regional and national levels are summarized. Factors that form the tax gap are defined. Due to the purpose of the study, it includes the amount of taxes and fees’ arrears, the amount of additional taxes and fees in case of tax inspections’ continuous coverage of taxpayers, and the scale of the shadow economy. The developed methodology for analyzing the structure and dynamics of regional tax gap factors is presented. It allows assessing its size, structure, and the work quality of region’s tax and financial authorities. Besides, it allows identifying opportunities for reducing the tax gap. A variant of grouping entities of the Federation regarding the state and prospects of reducing the tax gap, formed on the basis of the ratio of its level and dynamics, is proposed. Grouping of regions helps to conduct its comparative analysis according to the tax gap and its determining factors. The potential for reducing the tax gap in Russia by improving the quality of tax administration has been largely implemented. The work with tax arrears opens up opportunities for financial and tax authorities. The shadow economy has the largest share in the tax gap, which actualizes the importance of conducting the comprehensive work of the state to legalize it.
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Regions’ export activity as an object of state support
Статья научная
The article reveals the forms of changing the system of state support for export activities at the meso-economic level. The forms are general (subject composition ofparticipants in foreign trade relations, procedure for their state regulation and development) and specific (methods for providing support to exporting enterprises, ways to assess the implementation of these methods). We systematize measures of government support for export according to functional purposes, arrange them into a multi-level scheme, and identify bottlenecks in its implementation. We develop our own approach to assessing the institutional and organizational support of regions’ foreign trade activities. We put forward a method for calculating the assessment of regulatory legal support for this activity, based on the establishment of criteria reflecting the effectiveness of forms of development of regions’ export activities. We carry out a comparative assessment of each form of support, which makes it possible to identify key areas of formation of regulatory legal support for foreign economic activity that have a significant impact on export activities in Russia’s regions. The application of the proposed method for managing the system of government support for export will help to address the most critical issues in the field of international cooperation and foreign trade relations. The system will help to create conditions for the development of export-oriented industries and enterprises, ensure greater availability of financial resources for organizations at all levels and an increase in export volumes through the formation of new mechanisms to support them. The implementation of the proposed measures will stimulate the production of goods in general, which will contribute to an increase in the added value of the regional economy, an increase in the tax base, foreign trade turnover and the number ofjobs, and create the most favorable conditions for the development of export activities in Russia’s constituent entities.
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Regulating return labor migration in the 21st century: foreign experience and Russian practice
Статья научная
The article analyzes current practices and measures of regulating commuting in different countries by classifying them according to the level, object of impact, actor, type of impact and purpose. The analysis shows that the regulation of migration processes in foreign countries is carried out by various branches of law, and measures are aimed not only at managing the flows of commuting, but also at mitigating its consequences at various levels. In Russia in general, commuting is mentioned in the strategies of socioeconomic development of individual regions without being fully integrated into management mechanisms. We reveal that its mentioning in regional development strategies does not take into consideration its actual volumes and implications for the regional economy. Thus, regional authorities do not sufficiently take into account economic and social consequences of commuting in their strategies. This also applies to its positive aspects, such as job creation and economic recovery, as well as potential negative effects associated with infrastructure overload, regional budget losses, etc. The importance of developing a system for monitoring commuting is emphasized, as well as the need for additional research to assess all aspects of its impact on the regions. The article is of interest to a wide range of researchers studying labor migration and regional development. The results can be used to develop practical recommendations for optimizing measures to regulate commuting in Russia, aimed at reducing its negative consequences and enhancing its potential for socio-economic development of territories.
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